


Meet Me On The Darkest Night

by Cryofreeze



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America: The First Avenger, M/M, Mission Fic, Protective Bucky Barnes, Rescue Mission, Steve's identity crisis, Stucky Big Bang 2017, World War II, sbb2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 10:32:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 70,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11849733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryofreeze/pseuds/Cryofreeze
Summary: “I know you think it wasn't my fault, Buck...”“You had to make a decision, there was no right or wrong choice.”Steve blinked miserably at the stone step beneath his knees, grinding grit into his so-called uniform. “Maybe I'm not cut out to be a Commanding Officer.” He forced back a lump in his throat threatening to constrict his voice. “Or Captain America...”~ ~ ~ ~After the Howling Commandos' last mission goes awry, Steve questions his morals and self worth as a soldier... and as Captain America. He struggles to believe in himself and the man he thought he was, but being thrust back out on another dangerous mission gives him little time to choose between his own self-doubts or giving his all to save 1,000 prisoners of war from Hydra's clutches.With the aid of Peggy Carter and the unwavering support of Bucky Barnes, they set out on a rescue mission inside the confines of a medieval fortress in WWII Europe. However, Steve isn't the only one to find the ghosts of the place crawl under his skin...There's angst, action and an emotionally driven core to the tale of how Steve Rogers is forced to come to terms with what it really means to be Captain America.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Taking part in the Stucky Big Bang has been a lot of fun for me, and I've been lucky enough to work with two amazing artists – FieryEclipse and Samthebirdbae! x) I'll link their awesome artwork below :^) 
> 
> For this project I wanted to create a new instalment of the Captain America story that takes place during the montage scene in The First Avenger, and keep it as canon-compliant as possible while telling a new story. Think of it like one episode of a TV show that takes us back to World War II and fills in the gaps we skimmed over in the movie x)  
> There is a lot of canon-typical action and violence in this story, but there are also vague mentions of minor character death, graphic descriptions of gore and several mentions of torture, but there will be appropriate warnings at the start of the aforementioned chapters! 
> 
> Art by FieryEclipse: [FieryEclipseOnAo3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10701150/chapters/26752503)  
> Art by Samthebirdabae: [SamthebirdbaeOnTumblr](https://samthebirdbae.tumblr.com/post/164382195428/bucky-finally-withdrew-his-shoulder-from-pressing)
> 
> Please remember to give the artists some love! And with that, I hope you enjoy my contribution to the Stucky Big Bang 2017! x
> 
> Title inspired by Svrcina's song “Battlefield”

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_People were shouting, their cries for help masked by the roaring of flames and sparks of blue gunfire ricocheting around a huge jagged building. Great plumes of smoke were spiralling up into the air and explosions lit up the sky like bolts of red lightning; large hazy flashes beneath a thick canopy of brick dust and destruction..._

Ears still raw and ringing quietly in the aftermath, Captain America sat in the moonlit rubble of a once proud little town in Western Europe, the cold dampness of rough stone steps seeping into the red, white and blue fabric of his uniform. Even in his slight discomfort he was reluctant to move from his perch on an old stoop, mesmerized by the way the lingering dew lit up the cobbled street and sparkled gently on the shattered windows of the houses all around. The beautiful stillness of the place provided a sort of blanket against the rest of the world that made him feel somewhat disconnected, like if he just stayed in this abandoned town he too would disappear.

It was a futile hope.

Soft scuffing of heavy boots approached his position, slow and mellow and baring no ill will. He would recognise that gait anywhere.

“I'm fine, Buck.” Steve said clearly, not turning away from his sleepy, picturesque view of the narrow street that curled away ahead of him. The footsteps slowed slightly but kept coming.

“You sure 'bout that? You look a little cold and miserable to me.” Before he even mustered the strength to turn around, a warm, heavy coat was draped over Steve's shoulders, chasing off the chill he hadn't even noticed was attempting to linger in his super soldier skin. It wasn't really a necessary comfort, but he was grateful all the same. “There ya go. I know you don't need lookin' after, but old habits die hard. Just – give me this one, 'kay?”

Bucky slumped onto the step beside Steve with a gruff sigh, graciously accepting the feeble smile of thanks when it was given his way. It fell silent between them after that, leaving just the sound of owls hooting eerily overhead; faint shapes swooping by against the dark sky. Steve might have been imagining it but he thought he could still taste the last flicker of gunpowder in the air, and was glad when Bucky lit up a cigarette and quietly puffed smoke out around them.

“I _am_ fine, you know. It's just...” Steve's excuses failed him and he hung his head, picking at the fraying edges of one of his gloves.

“I know.” Bucky almost crooned, and Steve cast a pitiful little look at him. His friend was watching the street with a small crease between his brows; that same crease that had introduced itself along with the war and the faint scars pinpricking his once smooth skin. Steve just allowed himself the privilege of the company and tried not to think about anything else.

They sat that way until the cigarette had burned down a considerable length.

“Y'know, when I first got here... I found it difficult to accept, too.” Bucky admitted and Steve's eyebrows rose slightly in attentiveness. He watched him inhale another short gust of smoke and blow it away again.

“Yeah?” He said stupidly, unable to think of anything else. Part of him was still a little numb, and it wasn't from the cold stone beneath him.

Bucky finally met Steve's eyes again, warm, blue and honest. “Yeah.” He looked down, rubbing a palm absently across his chin. Steve heard the scratch of two day old stubble against his skin. Another owl hooted nearby. “How a human life can just be snuffed out in a heartbeat. Watching people die, knowing I could have done something, or that it could have been me instead. Knowing _I_ did that to someone...” He sighed deeply, then shook his head at himself. “It ain't easy having that kinda thing on your conscience, I know that. It's terrifying. Took me a long time to get my act together out here...”

Steve swallowed, watching with remorseful eyes as Bucky recalled the memory of his early days at war.

“How did you stop being afraid?” He kept his focus on Bucky as his friend twisted in his seat a little to capture the sight of another swooping bird passing overhead. He took a moment to process his answer, one Steve waited for with baited breath.

“I didn't. I just realised that I had to do what needs doin'. I know it ain't pretty, but it's war – we gotta do things we don't like, but we're doing it for the good of our country, for the people back home depending on us to win this thing for them.” Bucky met Steve's eyes again, looking both a little sad but sure. “I still don't like killing people – Jesus, who does? But we're soldiers, and we gotta do our part. That's all we _can_ do.” He concluded softly, gazing at Steve with resolute honesty.

And Steve finally relented, closing his eyes briefly and failing not to remember where doing _his_ part had led him...

_Silhouettes scampered away from the blaze like ants from a colony, tripping over their feet in their haste to escape the foul place. Monstrous tanks and Hydra officers sent snarling blue bullets after them, crawling ever closer to the tide of innocent soldiers on the cusp of freedom and exterminating them handfuls at a time. The height of the fire was immense, eating through the foundations of the building and burning down both brick and flesh –_

Steve shook himself, jolting back to the present and the bleak coldness seeping up from the stoop beneath him. He struggled to find his voice again.

“I know you think it wasn't my fault, Buck, but good people died because of me. Those same innocent people who were depending on us to save them.”

“You had to make a decision, there was no right or wrong choice –”

“No. I fell short. I wasn't good enough.” Steve blinked miserably at the light stone between his knees, grinding grit into his so-called uniform. “Maybe I'm not cut out to be a Commanding Officer.” He forced back a lump in his throat threatening to constrict his voice. “Or Captain America...”

When he mustered the strength to look up again, it was difficult to savour the sweetness in the remains of this empty town that he'd been so glad of previously. It all suddenly looked so very different, the hollowed buildings ghastly and dark, the old raindrops an oily stain vandalising a once happy place. Vacant window panes were the bruised eye sockets of these broken buildings, telling him he was no longer welcome, and with every tune of an owl he had to force himself not to jump.

“ _Steve_.” Bucky shifted, rescuing him from his fragmenting thoughts. He turned to face Steve more squarely, meeting his gaze and holding it firmly, the whole warm, reliable strength of him a relief. “Look, you're new at this; it's only been a coupla months. And I don't just mean the Captain America thing – but being at the front lines, too. It's gonna be intimidating, but I've never known you to give up because of that.” Then Bucky snickered and lightly punched Steve's leg, trying to lighten the mood. “And you've always been like a superhero, just without the tights.” Usually it would've worked to cheer him up a bit, and Steve appreciated that he was trying, but a few fun jokes weren't enough to erase all the blood now staining his hands.

“I'm serious, Buck. I'm trying so hard to help people but when I finally get the chance I can't do it – it was my word that chose who lived and died today, but what gives me the power to play god? Why should I decide who's father goes home to his kid and who's doesn't...?” He rubbed his hands together, avoiding Bucky's face.

“We got almost five hundred guys outta there. _You_ did. That's a helluva lot of men who got rescued.”

“Yeah, and there was another five hundred more just like them who didn't.” Steve swallowed again, his throat closing up, and felt itchy all over in his costume.

Because that was all it was – a costume.

Perhaps this had been an accident waiting to happen; perhaps he should have allowed himself some time to adjust to his new situation before leaping into war the way he had. Even with his team of new solid friends at his back, finally discovering that he was in fact unable to live up to people's expectations of him was hard.

Realising he was unable to live up to his own expectations of himself was even worse.

He wasn't fit to protect and serve his country – he couldn't possibly be the manDr Erskine had hoped he would be. Steve closed his eyes again, listening to Bucky's breathing and the gentle crackle of burning tobacco as he finished his cigarette in contemplative silence.

After a few long, thoughtful seconds, Bucky spoke up again. “Look. We try and save as many people as we can, even if that doesn't mean everyone. But if we can't find a way to live with that, learn from it, and get over it... then next time maybe nobody gets saved.”

Steve turned his head to find Bucky watching him with those big kind eyes. He wasn't smiling, he wasn't trying to liven Steve up with another joke; he was perfectly sincere and allowing him the time he needed to process this piece of advice.

Steve had once believed he would get _there_ – complete the transformation and fuse both parts of his life into one: Steve Rogers, Captain America... the perfect super soldier. He wasn't so sure about 'perfect', but until this latest mission he had found himself feeling snug and belonging within his red, white and blue suit – with his men by his side, taking down Hydra piece by piece. It had been nice, to finally get to be the man he'd always been inside, but now Steve realised he'd only fallen for the illusion he himself had been feeding the American public; he wasn't a _Captain_ , and he most certainly wasn't a hero either. Those men who'd lost their lives today would testify to that.

But there were still almost five hundred POWs resting just outside of town, waiting for someone to lead them to safety and end the nightmare they'd all endured in Hydra captivity. They deserved to be free, they deserved food and shelter and to go home to their loved ones, and Steve was going to make sure it was seen to. A privilege, he desperately regretted with all of the remaining strength he possessed, that couldn't be said for all of the prisoners they'd set out to liberate that day.

Steve didn't know how he could go back out there and face the survivors, and the equally-sized empty space where the rest of them should be, and play Captain like nothing was wrong. He did, however, know he couldn't allow himself to delve into the new dilemma of his identity while the lives of those men that hadescaped that place were still in the balance.

His personal crisis would have to wait for now, he decided.

“You're right. Thank you, Buck.” It was much easier to twitch his lips into a smile than he'd expected and he was unspeakably grateful that his friend was there with him. Steve Rogers was always braver with Bucky Barnes by his side, and he thought they could manage to get the POWs to the pick up point together, at least.

“Well, I think you're a great Commanding Officer. _And_ a great Captain America. I'd sure feel real lonely out here if you backed out now. 'Sides, I don't think Stark would be too happy if you tried to return the helmet they finally got to fit your big head.” Bucky playfully knocked on the blue casing covering Steve's skull, and this time Steve did laugh, a shocking sound he hadn't been expecting.

“Then I guess I don't have a choice, do I...?” They watched each other, both walking along the edge of a smile, and this time when another bird called out, Steve didn't flinch.

Bucky finally withdrew his shoulder from pressing a comforting weight against Steve's, rubbing his hands together against the dampness in the air. It wasn't necessarily cold, but Bucky didn't have 200lbs of muscle to insulate him from the weather, Steve reminded himself. He slipped the thick fabric of the coat Bucky had supplied him with off of his shoulders, instead wrapping it over his friend's frame and earning a little huff of self-deprecating laughter for his efforts.

Bucky rolled his eyes at the gesture, like he could absolutely keep up with Steve's super soldier hardiness, but his fingers clutched the second coat a little closer to his body anyway. “You ready to take 'em home?” He nodded his head back up the street to where the POWs were resting a mile away, some injured, others simply paralysed with exhaustion.

“Give them a little longer. They need the rest.” Steve said softly, turning his gaze once again over the crooked street when Bucky nodded in agreement and burrowed a little deeper into the confines of his coats.

With the sizzling guilt in his gut momentarily stemmed, Steve was able to refocus on the beauty still haunting this private place before them – the nightmares in all the dark corners had receded as though they never were, and once again it was just a hopeful little town, crumbling, abandoned, yet wearing the scars of its battles bravely on its chest. Bucky seemed able to see it for all its worth too, and together they sat and watched the view with a lingering appreciation, taking the moment for themselves before they had to leave this place and all it promised behind in search of a better day.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

“Captain.”

Bucky turned to see Agent Carter approaching with her smart stride of authority, her smouldering gaze focused solely on Steve and her entire appearance styled to perfection as always. She was quite the sight for sore eyes. Out of his peripheral vision Bucky noticed Steve stand a little straighter, and realised that he wasn't the only one to think so.

“Sergeant.” Quickly putting himself in check, he smiled politely when Agent Carter gave him a cursory glance once she finally tore her gaze from Steve's, though her attention soon returned to the Captain. “There's been a report of another captured regiment, this time in the Pieniny Mountains on the Polish and Slovakian border. It looks like they've been in there for some time.” She stopped in front of them, arms neatly held by her sides and her posture immaculate.

Bucky's heart plummeted at the news, and he turned to watch for Steve's reaction.

“How many?” He asked, expertly masking the insecurities he'd confessed to Bucky earlier.

“Could be over 1,000. We're sending you back out in the morning.”

Bucky could have winced at the stakes of this new job. Steve had removed his helmet and was still standing proud in his Captain America uniform, though a flicker of doubt and uncertainty danced over his features. The whole Superhero thing might have been a little difficult to adjust to at the beginning, but now Bucky couldn't imagine the title going to anyone else if Steve felt inadequate to carry the responsibilities it entailed.

He believed he would bounce back – Steve always did – and take the reigns proudly once more, but until then Bucky knew the man needed some time to gather his thoughts in order to find his way again, not get sent out on another mission.

He said nothing about their earlier conversation, but having Steve's back required some action on his part; Bucky groaned loudly, feigning irritation at Agent Carter's news. “Already? I was hopin' for a little R&R...”

“No rest for the wicked I'm afraid.” She addressed him with sympathy, and Bucky cast a little glance at Steve to see where he was at with the situation. When he met Bucky's eyes, Steve's stoic facade slipped a little as he sent a grateful quip of his eyebrows as a silent 'thanks anyway'. Apparently they weren't as subtle as intended, as Agent Carter shortly added, “...unless you need a day, Captain?” A note of concern slipped through her usually professional tone but Steve was quick to shake it off and adopt his practised soldier's stance once again.

“No ma'am. We'll be ready to head out first thing in the morning.” He vowed, and it was so sincere that even Bucky almost believed it.

Agent Carter's eyes lingered in that full, heated way they always did while looking at Steve, and Bucky got the feeling she could see every detail of conversation that had passed between them earlier in that little abandoned town. He was about to avert his gaze and give the two of them a moment, but then Carter briskly, impossibly straightened her posture a little more and acknowledged Steve's decision with a nod.

“Very well. Though Colonel Phillips wants a briefing tonight, so I'd suggest we head over there now. You know he doesn't like to be kept waiting.” Then she softened slightly. “And I'm sorry we lost men today, I trust you all did your very best.”

Both Steve and Bucky swallowed down their subsequent feelings on the matter, resisting the urge to share another glance. Steve nodded shortly, and then Agent Carter was leading the way through the thin, twisting corridors of the building. The men followed the smart sway of her shoulders, walking side by side while trying not to drag their feet.

1,000 prisoners of war, enduring god knew what under the hands of those twisted Hydra Nazis... Bucky blew out a breath, setting his mind on the task ahead. He wasn't afraid – he was determined to do all he could to rescue those men from enemy clutches. But Steve, on the other hand... It didn't sit right with Bucky, that his friend no longer deemed himself worthy of his rank as Captain, and he wished he could do or say something to instil the confidence in him that the man deserved.

Noting the little lines of worry on his friend's forehead now that Agent Carter wasn't looking, Bucky bumped his shoulder against the bulk of muscle that compensated for Steve's. When big blue eyes turned to him the men shared a silent look that Bucky intended to be encouraging, before Carter pushed open a door and they all descended a flight of stairs to the lower sanctum of the London SSR base.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

The men sat under the rusting amber hue that the lamps cast over the war table, eyes on the large, sprawling wall map behind the blocky shape of the Colonel. Steve wanted nothing more than to just find a quiet corner, shed his Captain's guise and shut his eyes to the world. Instead, he had to listen intently and pretend that he thought nothing wrong of the way they'd so clumsily executed the mission early that morning. He had to pretend that he was raring to go and simply ready to move on to the next one, regardless of the lives lost on his watch.

“...A 'Gert Fertig'. At first we thought he might be some sort of scientist or Nazi soldier, but as it turns out he's a prison warden previously stationed at Spandau Prison in Berlin.” Peggy was saying. “We think Hydra recruited him at the start of the war to oversee their more extravagant prison camps.”

Colonel Phillips piped up next, the growl to his voice deepening further than usual in dislike. “Some other Nazi obsessed with death and torture and god only knows what...! My bet is he's up to his li'l German eyeballs in this thing, probably swapping notes with that snivelling pet Schmidt keeps at his heels. Now, there's been no confirmed sign of the man to assert our suspicions, but if Fertig is in there we can assume he has a direct line to Schmidt. Your job is to find it.”

“And to rescue the imprisoned allied soldiers.” Peggy added smoothly, turning her eyes back to Phillips to allow him to continue.

Nobody had even complained or shouted in Steve's face about what had happened – nobody out-with his initial team even seemed to care about the POWs they'd lost; sitting around the large mahogany table, listening to a mission briefing and witnessing the SSR just carry on like nothing had even happened made Steve feel like a fraud. Like he no longer belonged there, or deserved to be privy to the secrets of the War. He struggled to stay tuned to the words meant for Captain Rogers' ears.

“ – where you will drop in to land just on the other side of this hill.” Colonel Phillips gestured to a point on the map. “Now I'm not gonna sugar coat it, ladies – this could get ugly. See that -” He stepped aside to draw the table's attention to one of the black and white photographs pinned to the wall.

It was a little difficult to make out the details, whether due to his state of mind or being positioned on the far side of the group, but what Steve could see looked like a large brick castle of sorts. It seemed pretty impenetrable, with thick fortified walls, battlemented towers, and something rather out of place jutting unseemly from the roof.

Phillips continued easily. “That is one of Hydra's nastiest toys: a cannon, blast radius of 200 feet far as we can tell, an' twice as mean as those tanks of theirs. I mean it when I say – you better not deploy those chutes before you clear the danger zone or that thing'll sure as hell zap you clean outta existence.” He looked around the men at the table, eyes lingering warningly on Falsworth and Dugan. The thrill-seekers elbowed each other once the Colonel became distracted from his other side when Peggy spoke up again.

“With all due respect, Colonel,” Steve found it difficult for a moment to manage to fully look her way, like the sun was burning too bright off of a reflective surface. He bubbled with admiration at her striking confidence and unapologetic manner, hiding the threat of a proud smile from his face. “Dropping the men anywhere near that canon could be too great a risk. A grounded frontal assault would be -”

“And _that_ , Agent Carter, is why you're not the one giving the orders around here. _I_ am.” Phillips interrupted, earning just a flicker of emotion on Peggy's face before it was expertly buried away behind her smooth, composed exterior. Steve began to frown. “Sending them in on foot would make them slower targets, not to mention if they do their jobs right they'll be escorting 1,000 POWs back through enemy territory. I don't suppose walkin' 'em all back like cattle is likely to work a second time...” He rounded on Steve and gave him a long look.

Steve just looked back, unwilling to show a trace of his true feelings to the man in charge. He didn't like the way the Colonel had just dismissed Peggy's word, though if she could hide all her emotions away, then so could Steve.

But when he opened his mouth to speak, she cut in across him. “Sir, I believe it would be beneficial to consider all our options when facing a fortress and fire power of this magnitude.” She had the slightest hint of a sharp edge to her words.

Phillips turned back to Peggy, his hands clasped tightly behind his back. He scrutinized her calm features for a moment before answering. “Alright then – let's hear it. But if 'Captain America and his Howling Commandos' blow themselves up out there, let us all thank Agent Carter when we lose the war.” He stopped by the map again, busying himself with giving the room a full view of the back of his displeased, judgemental head. He always liked to be dramatic.

Peggy smoothly pressed on. “We shouldn't underestimate our enemy; they would be able to spot the incoming aircraft, even if it is out of range of their weapons. We would lose the element of surprise, and subsequently subject the Captain and his squad to a full on attack from the entire armed guard protecting the fortress.” She defended her opposition to Phillips' plan, and the soldiers all nodded thoughtfully in agreement as they realised she was right.

“A frontal assault would mean the soldiers come in on the ground under cover of the mountains, out of sight of the cannon _and_ the armed guard. Once they get inside they disable the weapon, rescue the POWs, take out whoever else Hydra might have in there and head up to the roof and call in the aircraft. There, we pick up the men and the POWs and fly them all to safety, rendering a long walk home obsolete.” Peggy finished and turned to wait patiently for a reply, watching the Colonel as calmly as ever. Her red fingernails _tap-tapped_ quietly on the tabletop.

The men all looked around at each other, marvelling at Agent Carter's genius and exchanging impressed expressions. Steve smiled to himself, amazed once again at what a valuable ally she was to have on the team. He just wished Phillips would remember it more often.

“Well, you seem to have everything all figured out now, don't you?” The Colonel faced the table again, hands on his hips. It was clear he wasn't finished with negotiations yet. “'Cept the part where _seven men_ confront a full armed force, goddamn _Nazis_ swarming outta every dark hole in there, without losing a few limbs in the process -”

“On the contrary, Colonel. The reports sighted merely a handful of hostiles on the Western gate, and the Hydra watchtower in the courtyard is only large enough to contain a few snipers, five at most. If the Captain and his troops approach undetected by that side under the cover of nightfall, that'll give the enemy no time to arrange themselves for an organized attack until it's too late – they'll have already reached the fortress.”

She truly was amazing.

There was a buzzing silence that bordered on too long, Peggy and Phillips sharing an impressive staring competition all the while, before Bucky spoke up to cut the tension.

“Leave the snipers to me, and Steve and the guys'll get inside no bother and take out any Hydra goon stupid enough to try 'em. We've faced worse than this and made it out alive.”

Steve swallowed, unable to chase the chill from his bones. Yes, _they_ might have made it out alive, but that couldn't be said for everyone involved in these types of missions... He felt his throat close and determinedly kept his face straight, not giving in to the impulse to duck his head and burn in shame right where he was.

Then, “Yes, I believe you have.” Peggy said simply, this time devouring Steve with her gaze and making him have to swallow again. The brazen show of trust in her smouldering eyes whacked him solidly in the chest, making him feel both woozy and giddy at once. It tangled and fought with his self-doubt and guilt, dragging heavily through him and settling uncomfortably in his stomach like a brick. However, the heat and praise she was projecting did something to melt the confused tangled knot, just a little.

Steve managed to gently hold her eye contact until Phillips intervened. “Fine. You all plan on getting' yourselves killed, that's your problem.” He grumbled, stealing Steve's focus back.

The creases on the Colonel's face were a little deeper than usual at having been overruled, but they all knew he was just putting on a show; he had that tone about him that meant he was aware that Peggy's plan was sound and that, ideally, none of the soldiers at this table would die tomorrow, he just didn't want to own up to the fact. Done with the conversation, he returned to his scanning of the wall map and waved an indifferent hand in their direction.

“Dismissed.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Steve's boots thumped against the ground when he pulled them off, quietly tugging at his sock to tuck away his big toe protruding through a hole in the fabric. A moment later, Bucky's boots landed beside his just like the good old days, and Steve felt comforted slightly by the normalcy of it amidst an otherwise devastating day. He was exhausted but didn't think he would be able to catch much sleep tonight; the unknown faces of the men he'd left to die were sure to haunt his dreams as persistently as they did his waking hours...

Steve was half aware of Bucky lying back on his own bed across the room and picking up last week's newspaper he'd been saving, finding his page and settling in to read. It was a good sight to see Bucky making time to at least go through the motions of relaxing, but Steve himself was incapable – he just sat slumped over at the side of his bed, elbows on his knees and eyes fixed unseeingly on the ground.

The room was fairly dark and shabby around them – the space between his and Bucky's beds wide enough to fit a rickety chest of drawers, though they kept it barely half full, with only a cracked little lamp buzzing away furiously on its surface to keep the place lit. They had a rectangle window in the wall above the dresser that cast a probing light into Steve's eyes every morning and left the room in shadow the rest of the time, and currently it was as useless as during the blackouts, only driving Steve's dark thoughts deeper.

Gabe, Morita, Dugan, Dernier and Falsworth were busying themselves with climbing into the bunks all lining the walls, their mumbled conversations and absence of their usual banter a clear sign of their own heavy hearts. Once they all settled, the only remaining source of movement in the room was the newspaper crinkling softly under Bucky's fingers. Steve briefly closed his eyes and just listened to the sound, hoping it would take him far away from here if only for a short moment of respite.

The soldiers rarely had a free minute to spend in their room opposed to out on the field, but slowly it was beginning to become their own. It was a safe, warm space to return to time and time again, and Steve sort of liked it. Or he _had_ liked it; only now he could practically feel the haven he'd created to escape the duties of war becoming infested and dirtied with the ghosts he'd just dragged home with him. The round shield sitting at the foot of his bed like a well-trained pet now seemed meant for someone else, and it hurt when he discovered he could no longer look at its smooth surface and happy colours and feel soothed. Instead it felt like a nasty burn to his insides.

So did the picture of his own face peeking at him from the front page of Bucky's newspaper. Steve averted his eyes, regret bleeding into his mind when he recalled the interview 'Captain America and his Howling Commandos!' had given last week. Bucky liked to read the articles, comment on his own photogenic ability and read out the big heroic words the reporters would use to describe the brave soldiers. He even sometimes clipped and stashed the best ones away for safe keeping, however it seemed this latest addition was unbefitting of a booming, accented narration.

At the time, Steve had thought he and the guys had been inspiring and sending hope to the millions, both to civilians back home and the men out here fighting this war. Now, however, he was privy to the deep dark truth that he wasn't the hero the world was expecting, or even a real soldier to begin with. He was just Steve Rogers, and it simply wasn't enough.

It was all a lie. 'Captain America' was a lie.

Steve bristled his fingers through his hair, closing his eyes again and trying not to notice the after-glow of fire and explosions still replaying on his eyelids or the damning, prickling heat building there, either.

Wallowing in self-pity wasn't something Steve often indulged in. However, he'd also never been responsible for the deaths of innocent men, so this time he thought he could allow it. After all, there was nothing he could do for those poor soldiers now...

“When are you gonna tell her?” Bucky interrupted his thoughts and Steve looked up to see those ice blue eyes still casually watching the newspaper. It took a moment of distracted contemplation and the subtle curl to the corner of Bucky's mouth for Steve to understand what he was referring to.

_Oh._

“Tell her what?” He said a little too quickly, the glorious memory of dark eyes, bright lips and an unmatched spirit kick-starting his heart into a lopsided gallop. The fizzle of excitement and nerves bursting through him was both rich and grounding, a welcome relief from the deep pull of gloom of just moments ago. “And who?” He added upon second thought, even though he knew the guise was up.

“Don't play dumb with me, kiddo, you only know the one girl.” Bucky stated, turning his head to send a lazy, knowing grin in Steve's direction.

“You got me there...” He admitted, smiling shyly at the truth and the topic of Peggy Carter, gratefully distracted from his earlier train of thought.

Bucky laughed at that, causing Steve to join in a bit.

“So...?” Bucky raised his eyebrows at him in question. When Steve just blinked stupidly at him, he turned the newspaper around to flash the middle spread photograph of Steve and their fellow soldiers all standing there bigger-than-life. It was only when he shook the page to draw Steve's eye to a print of Peggy in the back of the frame that he realised Bucky was still awaiting an answer to his initial question.

“Tell her _what_ , Buck? Come on...!” Steve shuffled, speaking quietly enough that the other guys wouldn't pick up on their conversation. He wasn't sure if he'd rather not talk about it at all or gush about every incomprehensible thing he could think of and manage to translate into words – which, it turned out, wasn't very many.

“What d'ya think? That you like her! You wanna take her out! Go dancin' till the sun comes up and then some...!”

Steve's eyes lingered on the photograph of Peggy. It made him want to smile, to see them both together in print like that, but Bucky was still watching him and suggesting he ask Peggy on an actual _date_ which made Steve eventually have to look away, conflicted over whether the idea terrified or thrilled him.

“Hmm, maybe _you_ should ask her – with a pitch like that, how could any good lady refuse...?” He teased, sending Bucky a dubious look from under his brows. Bucky just laughed quietly and shook his head in reply, briefly returning his attention to the paper in his lap.

Only a few seconds of thoughtful silence passed between the two before it was broken once again.

“Steve – look,” Bucky finally abandoned his reading and placed the rumpled newspaper back on top of the chest of drawers, turning onto his side to stare Steve down properly. He significantly lowered his voice. “It's your first love, 'course it's gonna be scary, but you haveta do it! That, or Carter's eventually gonna come to her senses and move on! She's a sharp tack that one, who can have any guy she wants, and if you don't make a move then that guy will eventually be someone else.”

If he was honest with himself, Bucky's speech made Steve feel a little nauseous. He knew what Bucky was saying was true, and that nothing was ever going to happen if he sat there waiting for it to unfold for itself. But the thought of anything finally coming to fruition with Peggy was almost more terrifying than running head first into a battlefield or jumping from a plane over enemy territory with bullets whizzing over his head...

Instead of trying to voice these thoughts aloud, Steve only cracked a little smile, thumbs twirling between his knees and the only thing betraying his true nerves about the situation. “You're not going to give me The Talk again, are you?” He peeked up at Bucky, watching the grin slide onto his face. They laughed shortly together.

“Not unless you think you'll need it...?” He insinuated, and Steve had to drop his gaze, laughing embarrassedly. Bucky shifted purposefully, drawing Steve's eye again. “Hey, don't freak yourself out over this, promise me? You've got enough goin' on without adding a dame to the mix. They come with their own set of problems, _believe_ me.” Bucky rubbed a hand over his eyes, exhaling in one long, tired sigh.

Steve thought it best not to open that can of worms from Bucky's past.

“Weren't you the one just trying to set me up?” He noted, thinking once again about Peggy and her luscious dark hair, her brilliant no-nonsense character, and the way she always _looked_ at him. His heart was still thumping away in his chest, trying to decide if it was in love or trying to run away. He eventually came to the conclusion that it was too big a question to possibly answer right now.

“I don't know, Steve, you gotta figure it out for yourself.” Bucky yawned from beneath his palm, eventually moving it to rest comfortably on his stomach. His eyes were closed and he looked prepared to fall asleep still in his clothes and on top of the blankets. He, too, had a few toes peeking out from holes in his socks.

Steve scratched his own palms together, frowning when the glint of his shield caught his eye and reminded him of his fresh psychological wounds all over again. Honestly, his love life or lack thereof should be the least of his concerns...

“It's not that easy, Buck.” He muttered, feeling exhausted and restless simultaneously. He envied Bucky's sleepy demeanour, growing aware again of the building sense of dread and guilt at the trip awaiting them tomorrow morning. “Nothing seems easy anymore...”

“You can't let fear of failure hold you back, and I've never known it to. It's just the same with love and war: if you give up you've already lost...” Bucky mumbled, having made the effort to stay awake a little longer and finish their conversation, though he was surely slipping into sleep.

Steve glanced at him, selfishly allowing the familiar presence and his words to sidle into his consciousness and sit there for a few minutes.

“Night, Buck.” He said finally, gently. Bucky was already fast asleep.

By the slow, deep breathing of the other men in the room it seemed Steve was the only one still awake. He bravely faced the solitude, deciding that his friends deserved the rest, and that they had less reason to evade their own dreams than he did tonight...

Steve would have given everything – he had, actually – to join his fellow men to fight for his country and the freedom his people deserved. Now though, it all seemed so very futile; he was just one unqualified and insignificant man amidst a raging war, and couldn't stop the weight of that fact or the guilt from the day seeping cold and slow over him. He sat there alone, surrounded by the greatest men he'd ever known, and only wished he was capable of following their example of valour.

A few seconds turned into a few minutes, and a few minutes turned into hours. It was still dark out, though felt like it should be nearing dawn, but Steve lingered just a little longer listening to Bucky's steady breathing and the flickering buzz of the lamp he'd forgotten to switch off.

The moment he moved he would have to take up a position – and what, he still wasn't entirely sure. He could give up, leaving 1,000 POWs to a terrible fate and aiding Hydra in their efforts to win the war. He could go to Colonel Phillips and request a demotion down to Private and work his way up the chain of command the way a _real_ man did it. Or he could strap on his colourful shield, put on a brave face and a funny costume and lead the crew of soldiers all counting on him to save the day.

Images of Peggy, of Hydra, of blood and gore and of his old Brooklyn neighbourhood swirled around Steve's head as he tried to take stock of his life and where it had led him...

He awoke suddenly, belatedly realising he was lying back on his mattress and that Bucky was quietly padding around the room in an effort to find the boots he'd hastily discarded the night before. The other beds were already empty. The window was angling its light deliberately at Steve's sensitive, scratchy eyes, and he hauled himself up into a sitting position and sighed into the dim shade that encompassed him instead.

Bucky looked over, first noticing that Steve was awake, and then that he'd managed to kick his boots half under Steve's bed. The Sergeant crossed the room and sank down on the thin, spongy mattress at his side, beginning to tug them on one by one.

Steve felt like he wouldn't be able to make a coherent sound if he tried, though was willing to put that down to lack of sleep. He chose to just sit there dazedly for a few minutes as he slowly came back to himself and was pierced anew by what had happened yesterday, and what mission still awaited them today.

“How you feelin' there, buddy?” Bucky looked at him warmly, sympathetically. Steve figured his inner monologue must have been running over his features and actively got a grip over himself. A job still needed to be done, and in the morning light it didn't seem _just_ as perilous as it had before.

“I've been better...” Steve admitted, tightening his jaw as he stuffed his own boots back onto his feet. Once satisfied, he stood and turned to meet his friend's patient eyes.

“You up for this?” Bucky asked, standing up with him.

Steve clung helplessly to the sense of urgency welling up inside him to finally get moving – it might feel better if he weren't just allowed to brood in his own mind, he reckoned. Either way, there was no more time left to waste hiding out in here. People were expecting them, and Steve couldn't be the man to keep them waiting.

He picked up his shield, repressing the urge to hesitate or second guess himself as he strapped it snugly onto his back like a second skin. Steve had never been so aware of the smooth pressure weighing on his shoulders until now.

“I guess we're about to find out.” He stated. For better or worse.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out this amazing piece of art by Samthebirdbae! :D

 

The sunset shone tiredly over the high rise of mountains on both sides, elongating shadowy stripes of the sparse trees running down the slopes. The tips of dark stone towers jutted up in the distance, outlined in a soft orange that infused the low clouds with a dim glow.

Steve splayed out a roll of paper atop the hood of one of the trucks, the men crowding around and bumping together for a clear view; an aerial surveillance map, helpfully providing a diagram of the full expanse of an old stone fortress. Bucky scanned the image, alerting himself to the position of the hastily built guard tower sitting inside the inner courtyard with a clear view of all surrounding angles. The sniper's nest.

“Here's our entry point.” Steve tapped the pad of his gloved finger on a door tucked neatly into the inside wall of the courtyard, leading into the main body of the settlement. “We don't know exactly how deep it goes, but old places like this usually had cellars and dungeons, so we can bet that's where Hydra are keeping the POWs.”

“Yeah, they do seem to go all out for the 'locked in a cage thing'.” Falsworth recalled bitterly and Bucky shuffled from foot to foot, a little uncomfortable under the memory himself. He lifted his gaze away from the map and back to his Captain, awaiting further instructions.

There were tired lines around Steve's baby blues that Bucky suspected meant he hadn't caught much sleep at all last night, but other than that nobody would be any the wiser to the blow this man's bleeding conscience had suffered yesterday. He was keeping it together for the team and for the POWs whose lives were in their care, wearing his little round shield high on his back and putting his own personal concerns aside for the integrity of the mission. Bucky couldn't have been prouder of him.

“Bucky and I will clear the way and get Dernier inside where he can set the charges. Dugan, Morita, I need you to follow us in then head up to the roof and take out that cannon.” The paper crinkled softly as Steve traced his hand over to the elaborate, high-tech looking gun set in the middle of the map. The sooner they took the thing down, the better. “Gabe, you'll keep your distance from on top of the hill and radio in if anyone comes investigating or looking for trouble. But stay out of sight, you hear?”

“Will do, Cap.” Gabe nodded dutifully, standing up the slope a short way from the rest. Sheltered from view of the fortress, he was just high up enough to cast a perceptive eye over the hill they were currently harbouring behind. The sight of the distant building was impressively picturesque as dusk began to settle around them.

“Good man. And when Dugan gives the signal, you call Peggy to send in our ride.”

Someone wolf whistled and the serious air blanketing the group momentarily dissipated.

“Oooh, so it's 'Peggy' now, is it...?” Falsworth cooed, drawing laughter from the boys and an unimpressed purse of lips and tinge of pink on Steve's face. Bucky chuckled at the sight, watching his best friend cringe.

“Alright...” Steve ducked his head, accepting the teasing he'd brought on himself. When he looked up, there was a tiny cunning smile twisting the corner of his mouth. “Falsworth, thanks for volunteering... you're going to be the distraction. Drive around near the front gate and make sure to let the soldiers shoot at you.” Everyone laughed at that, until Steve clapped a large hand down on the Brit's shoulder when the man pretended to be absolutely affronted. “If you can do that without _actually_ getting hit, even better.”

“Well, I think I might need a drink to set me right after a stint like that, but if you're buying, Cap, I'm all in!” Falsworth announced, and the men all input a hearty agreement. Bucky's grin widened further.

“Sure thing. But first things first...” And just like that Steve was all business again, and Bucky stowed his smile to adopt a more serious show of attentiveness. “We're gonna need enough time to scour the place for all prisoners before we blow it to kingdom come, and I don't want to stay out here for too long without our air support. We're in Hydra territory, so the quicker we can get this done, the less chance we have of running into nasty reinforcements.” Steve turned back to the map, his eyes raking the paper for every scrap of information it offered.

“Hear hear.” Dugan agreed, blowing out a thoughtful breath and subconsciously adjusting his bowler hat.

Steve continued. “That means – Bucky, once you take out that tower I need you to start clearing out the lower levels. Look for prisoners, free any you can find. Falsworth can go with you. I'll go on to the Eastern Tower, taking down any other Hydra agents I find...” He ran his hand to the largest, tallest tower on the map, one that had been circled prominently in red ink. “If this Fertig is there, I'll get him.”

The sincerity of the statement rang true, inspiring the troops and preparing them all for the road ahead. Bucky and Steve locked eyes once they both looked back up from the map, and in that moment Steve slipped him a weary 'or let's hope so' expression. Bucky purely nodded in reassurance, letting his friend know that they were good to go: they all knew their roles, and they were going to finish this.

Steve settled a little more, sliding expertly back into Captain mode. “We're getting _everybody_ out. Understood? Nobody dies today.” There was a shuffle of movement as everyone took this message on board, straightening up from the hood of the truck and stretching out their backs.

“...Well, 'cept Hydra.” Bucky belatedly added.

Steve looked at him, contemplating the dark promise there, before giving a silent nod in agreement. He didn't like it, Bucky knew, but saving the lives of innocent men was a priority over sparing that of their unforgiving captors. This was war, and they were going to have to do everything in their power to survive.

The sun had slipped steadily lower, turning the shadows into longer trails and the clouds above a dramatic red.

“Everybody ready?” Steve asked the little group, satisfied by what he saw there. His brow lowered, his voice darkened, and he tucked the map securely back into the truck. “To your positions, then. Let's do this.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Dials and buttons bleeped in their own secret language, spanning the entire length of the control console that took up one end of the aircraft's large bridge. Peggy studied its surface, and more importantly, the little flashing dot highlighted in the scanner. Her train of thought was suddenly interrupted by an obnoxious slurp and heavy footfalls approaching.

“Agent Carter, what we looking at?” Colonel Phillips stopped beside her, taking another slurp of his coffee. Peggy stood up a little straighter, withholding the urge to roll her eyes at the man's less than courteous arrival.

“ _That_ is the fortress, Colonel. We just received confirmation that the men have arrived and are moving in for the attack. I expect we won't hear from them again for an hour or so.” She clasped her hands smartly behind her back, not taking her eyes away from the rotating dial.

A simple hum of acknowledgement came from the Colonel, before he turned to level her with a long look. Peggy didn't flinch. “Let's hope you're right about this, and that by morning we aren't looking at a war without Captain America on our side...” He drawled, then turned on his heel and made his way across the bridge to speak instead with some of the crew.

Colonel Phillips was clearly still a little displeased at having been overruled during the briefing earlier, but Peggy stood fast in her opinion: she had no doubts that the men were more than capable of completing the mission. Captain Rogers was a super soldier after all, and she had seen him perform stunts in action that ordinary men could scarcely dream of. She trusted him to get everybody in and out of that fortress alive, and with his team at his side they couldn't lose. Not again.

Peggy swept an acute eye around the bridge at the men and women loyally awaiting the moment they would be called into action on Captain America's request. Nobody was looking her way. Even Howard had averted his gaze from her frame for once in his life now that the pilot's seat was somewhat more entertaining. Peggy turned her attention back to that simple flashing dot on the console, then reached out to lightly touch her fingertips to the circle of glass between her and the only make-do visual she had of the men out risking their lives. Then she was walking calmly after Phillips, as composed and as smart as ever.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

By the time each of the Howling Commandos had gotten themselves into position, a light blanket of darkness had fallen on their surroundings. It wasn't quite thick enough to block out Bucky and Dernier's facial features at either side of Steve, but they were in no danger of being spotted prematurely so long as they followed the plan. Currently, the plan involved hiding in the fortress' impressive shadow, lying on their stomachs in the cool grass while trying to ignore the tickle on their faces.

They could just make out the sound of crunching footsteps and muffled voices conversing with each other in German. Peggy had been right in her assessment of the Western gate, as so far they had only counted four guards: two at each side of the gate on ground level, one inside the tower directly above it, and another on the rampart running along the top of the wall, peeking occasionally between the parapets before moving on with his patrol. Taking into consideration their tactical advantage of stealth, it seemed Steve, Bucky and Dernier would be out of range of the snipers nest sitting inside the courtyard as long as they stayed close to the huge exterior wall of the fortress. Overall, it could have been worse.

Except...

“That's a hell of a gate...” Bucky said from Steve's side, and he was undoubtedly wearing the same wide-eyed expression as Steve himself. The Western gate, it seemed, was only in little need of sentries due to the thing itself absolutely rejecting any vulnerability in the vastness of it's fortified height and breadth. Almost 20ft by 10ft.

“So much for breaking the door down.” Steve muttered, sharing a wary look with his friend before he shook himself out of it. The Western entrance was the only plausible route that Peggy had found for them, and of course he trusted her judgement explicitly. They were just going to have to find a way inside, despite the unexpected mass of the door blocking their way. “Change of plans. Dernier, when we reach the walls you try and find a way to open that gate, _quietly._ Me and Buck will take out the guards.”

“Oui.” Dernier said in agreement, then a silence fell between them as they waited for the signal to enact the plan. A silence that gave birth to another unwelcome whirlwind of Steve's thoughts: it was all very well giving out orders, but being able to successfully follow them through was going to be a considerable test of will he wasn't at all confident he could overcome. The presence of his round shield felt like it was pressing Steve deeper into the ground and posing a constant reminder of what he was meant to be, and just how utterly incapable he was of seeing it all through. A year ago he'd still been just li'l Steve Rogers, struggling to make ends meet back in Brooklyn. What place did _he_ have on a battlefield on the Polish border, never mind actually _leading_ the operation?

The three men breathed softly into the grass for a few long minutes, and Steve hoped he was imagining that his nerves were audible in just his exhale. More so, he hoped that Dernier didn't notice. Then Bucky's hand appeared on Steve's shoulder, he assumed offering greatly appreciated support, until he realised his friend was trying to get his attention.

“Hey, Steve?” He turned his head in question, tearing his eyes off the huge gate. “Got ya something.” Bucky began to wriggle where he lay, reaching toward his breast pocket.

“Buck, we need to concentrate -” Steve began, quickly checking on things back over at the looming fortress.

“Relax, it'll just take a second.” So Steve waited, watching the faint highlight of the moon on Bucky's familiar face as he retrieved something from his coat that was small enough to encase in his fist. Steve held out his hand to accept the hidden object and Bucky dropped what looked like a leaf into his palm. “For the nerves. Figured it might make you feel a li'l better, having something to keep you goin'.”

Steve squinted through the dimness, taking a moment to register his apparent gift.

When he did, he sent a questioning look at Bucky on his other side but the guy simply grinned back, sharing this secret between just the two of them. Steve flushed a little and looked back at the small square of paper, crudely ripped around the edges and tucked safely against his palm. As his eyes adjusted more he could make out the beautiful face printed on its surface materialising out of the darkness – a newspaper clipping perfectly framing Peggy Carter's image.

It felt like a violation of her privacy, of some sort, to harbour a picture of her that she hadn't even given him. Steve cringed at the thought, but tried to rationalise and accept the photograph for what it was; a gift, a token to make him feel better, something for him to keep. And it was silly, he knew, but already he felt a little braver with it on his person than he had done a moment ago.

Steve looked back up at his friend and gave him a small, grateful smile. “Thanks, Buck.”

“No problem.” And with that Bucky returned to scoping out the fortress, toying with a little smirk he was trying and failing to keep to himself.

Steve thought for a moment before he pulled out his compass and placed the photograph carefully inside. He'd need to smooth out the rough edges later, but for now the picture fit snugly enough that he didn't have to worry about losing it. The last thing he needed was to drop anything identifying Peggy into a nest of Hydra Nazis, he thought as he stowed the compass back into his belt. Just knowing it was there seemed to press a warm little circle into his side.

Almost as soon as he'd re-joined the watching of the gate, the unmistakable revving of an engine sounded above the peaceful ringing of nature at night.

“That would be Falsworth doing his 'distracting'...” Steve whispered, shaking his head in amusement. The three men waited, poised, while the successfully distracted Hydra sentries exchanged suspicious looks and crept slowly closer to the direction of the incoming vehicle.

“Yeah, and let's hope he doesn't run outta gas before he's done.” Bucky scoffed just as their truck skidded into view from behind the treeline, headlights blazing almost as harshly as the exhaust pipe. Falsworth could just barely be heard whooping and yelling extremities from the driver's seat.

Bullets began to pepper into the air, little confused bursts before they picked up memento and the guards started toward the speeding truck with gusto. Steve kept himself aware of the monstrous cannon resting somewhere above them on the roof that was not to be taken lightly.

“On my mark...” He held up his hand, eyes trained on one particular sentry still hanging back and peering down from the tower above the gate. Finally the guard moved to an adjacent window, leaving his post wide open. “Now.” Steve hissed.

Together as a unit of three, Steve, Bucky and Dernier all darted up from the grass and ran toward the fortress, keeping low to avoid detection. It was difficult to see where they were going in Falsworth's wild, spinning headlights but Steve didn't stop, keeping his soldiers close at his heel and helping Dernier right himself when he almost stumbled on an unruly knot of grass. The Hydra guns kept shooting, but not a single bullet was aimed their way.

When they neared the outside wall of the settlement and became successfully hidden from view in the depths of the shadows gathered there, Dernier peeled off from the group and hurried over to the gate. The two Brooklyn boys slowed and crept swiftly after the closest unsuspecting Hydra agents on ground level, taking full advantage of Falsworth's distraction and wild cackling to sneak up behind them undetected.

The man never saw him coming, didn't even put up much of a fight when Steve's biceps closed around his windpipe and sent him straight to sleep. Trying not to spare the deed much thought, Steve collected the discarded machine gun and slung it over his shoulder, turning to see Bucky do the same over another crumpled heap of a Nazi.

They met eyes through the waning headlights, both wearing serious expressions. It wasn't pleasant, what they were doing, but Steve held onto the advice Bucky had given him yesterday about playing their part as soldiers and used it to help pull himself back into the fight. They were here to free POWs, and stopping the Hydra Nazis containing them was a number one priority. He didn't have to enjoy knocking people out, he just had to get on with it.

Steve knew he had to get it together, and beckoned for Bucky to regroup back over at the base of the settlement.

“Come on you Nazi bastards!” Falsworth yelled up through the window of the truck, whooping in delight as he swerved every which way to avoid the shower of angry bullets tailing him. Well, maybe _somebody_ was enjoying himself.

Bucky and Steve backed up against the rough stone wall, disappearing once more right beneath the noses of the watch tower guards. Steve peeked up the wall spanning away from them, eyeing their next, still pleasantly ignorant targets still attempting to shoot down Falsworth.

“I'll go wide, get the one up above. You stay here and take out the guy on the tower.” He said, tugging free his shield from his shoulders just as a parade of bullets rained furiously down on the hood of the truck. Falsworth belatedly dodged, thankfully escaping the worst of it, but the remaining two Hydra agents finally seemed to be losing their temper. “And watch my back.” Steve added thoughtfully.

“Always do.”

With that, he ran back out from cover and flung his shield in a wide arc up towards the rampart, effectively announcing his presence with a loud _THWANG!_ of vibranium bouncing off a Nazi helmet as he knocked the man right off of the battlement wall.

Now that he'd captured the last sentry's attention from Falsworth, Steve caught and dived behind his indestructible shield just in time to avoid being torn in half by the fabled Hydra greeting sent his way. Then a few louder, closer rounds originating from Steve's left signalled that Bucky had joined back in on the action – he struck down the enemy from the edge of the shadows, sending the body tumbling down onto the grass with a sad thump that echoed out in the sudden absence of gunfire. The rumbling engine from the truck cut out next, making way for only the imprint of the sound lingering in the air around them.

Steve cast a cautious eye over their surroundings and the four bodies littering the ground, mentally confirming that they'd got the last of them before hurrying to rejoin Dernier at the gate.

“Can you open it?” Steve asked, a little out of breath as he approached the French man's side, gazing up at the impressive craftsmanship on the latticed, wrought iron grille supporting the solid wood as it loomed closer.

“Non. Ne peux pas. Nuh-uh, pas sans - _bang bang_!” Dernier replied, imitating the sounds of explosions. The meaning was clear.

“Dammit!” Steve cursed quietly.

“What is it?” Falsworth appeared at his back, Bucky right behind him.

Steve sighed and placed his hands on his waist in frustration. “We can't open the gate without blowing it up. We've already used our element of surprise and I'll bet there are a handful of hostiles waiting for us just behind this door, now the last thing we need is to draw the attention of the entire fortress with an explosion! Our best bet is to get inside quick and quiet and take out who we can before they call for reinforcements – I for one don't see us making it through the full army if they get a chance to congregate on the other side of that door.”

“Great! Fantastic!” Falsworth looked around them all, his eyes still a little wild from the danger he'd just cruised through moments ago. “Anyone have any suggestions, then?”

There was a mutual, pensive moment between the four of them where nobody said anything.

“So now what? That thing's built like a tank – without anything to lever it open, we're never gettin' through.” Bucky assessed, pouting in thoughtful vexation at the gate before them.

Dernier said something in French but by the tone of his voice and his dejected body language he too was out of ideas. Steve frowned up at the huge door, taking a few steps back to really take in the full sight of it. Grand and stubborn, it looked infallible in its hinges and bolts, surrounded by the solid brick of the wall on three sides and hard, muddy earth trampled underneath it.

“Well, unless someone wants to dig we're not gettin' in this way.” Bucky stole the thought right from Steve's head.

“Face it, lads – It's impossible.” Falsworth concluded, wiping a hand over his brow. Then a sudden spark of inspiration hit Steve out of nowhere. It was crazy – he'd never attempted anything like it before, but...

He couldn't account for where the thought came from, however with no better ideas coming to mind he decided to go ahead and humour himself. “Maybe not...”

They were all here because the SSR had sent _Captain America_ to save the day, and Bucky, Dernier, and Falsworth had just risked their lives following his orders to get to this very spot. He wasn't ready to let them all down now, not when none of them had even managed to set foot inside the fortress to begin with!

He was unsure if he was even capable of enacting the plan he had in his head, but even so, began to pace purposefully back in toward the base of the gate, drawing everyone's eye as he handed Falsworth his shouldered Nazi gun, plucked off his gloves and stowed them hastily in his belt. Looking left and right, he judged where was the best place to start.

“Steve, what are you...?” Bucky tapered off when Steve took a firm grip of the iron grille decorating the wood, stretched out his legs to give himself a solid stance, then hauled.

 

It took a moment to begin to comprehend what his best friend was looking to accomplish, only because the idea was so absurd that who would even attempt it in the first place? The gate oughta weigh a couple of tons at least, Bucky estimated, and he just watched in blank disbelief as Steve thrust all of his super soldier strength into trying to pry it up from the ground.

The man's blue eyes squeezed shut in effort, his teeth clenched tightly together and his face began to turn pink beneath the rim of his helmet. The others didn't say anything, too dumbfounded by this ludicrous plan to even utter a word, but somehow Bucky found that he wasn't even surprised by what he was watching. Of course Steve would give lifting something one hundred times his weight a go and think he had a chance of actually succeeding.

And yet...

As he watched, the dim pattern of metal on wood began to shift. Bucky initially dismissed it as a trick of the dark in the fortress' dense shadow, but when the squeak of rusting metal ground out from the gate's framework it became impossible to ignore what was _really_ happening.

“I'll be damned...” Bucky muttered, slack jawed as he watched the little kid he'd grown up with manage to force the huge medieval gate to move on its chains, lifting it up a few inches then pausing, supporting the entire weight of it in his hands.

“ _Jesus!_ ” Falsworth gasped.

“Oh mon Dieu...” Dernier whispered, his eyes like saucers as he gazed at their Captain.

...And _this_ was the guy who thought himself unworthy of the title of 'hero'...? Bucky actively had to make himself shut his gaping mouth.

Okay, _now_ he was surprised.

Falsworth cleared his throat. “Yes, well... great thinking, Cap! I was _just_ about to give that a go myself, actually...!” He turned to Bucky, flashing a somewhat terrified, astonished look his way. Bucky bit back a laugh, not entirely sure if it would come out hysterical or not.

Steve shifted his grip, testing the weight to see if he could continue to hold the gate open. Apparently he could, as he turned to look at them over his shoulder, his voice straining a little. “Falsworth, give the others the signal. The moment I clear enough space, you guys head in there. Buck, get to higher ground – those snipers will be watching us and we need to get rid of them fast.”

Bucky had never imagined he would see something like what was transpiring in front of him with his own eyes, much less from _Steve_ of all people! But he just rearranged his hold on his commandeered Hydra gun and nodded in response, trying to chase away the amazement still clouding his mind and focus once more on the mission.

Falsworth was speaking into his radio but Bucky couldn't hear what was being said. He just stared at Steve, dragging up his voice as though he hadn't used it in years. “What about you? You plannin' on hanging out there all night?”

“Don't worry about me.”

“Oh, if only...” Bucky drawled, smirking at the irony. Steve huffed at him, pursing his lips at having been caught out. Then Bucky dropped the humour, looking once more at the bulky walls running for miles at either side of them. “I'll get inside, open the gate from there and head on up to get the snipers. Think you can hold the fort there for a coupla minutes?”

“This? It's nothing. Not a scratch on the time I had to lift your drunk butt up all those stairs last New Years...” Despite the improbability of what he was currently holding, Steve managed to give his best mischievous smile.

“You want me to leave you there...?” Bucky rounded on his best friend again but they were interrupted by the crackle of Falsworth's radio going silent.

“Dugan and Morita are on their way. I told them to hurry it up – old Hercules here looks like he's struggling.”

Bucky and Steve shared a last knowing glance before the seriousness of the mission sunk back into them all.

“You guys ready?” Steve asked, continuing only when everyone had voiced their assent. “We don't know exactly how much resistance will meet us through there, so all of you just stay alert and don't get shot.” Bucky braced himself, sliding the gun securely over his shoulder with adrenaline tingling in his veins as though he were about to run a marathon. “And Buck?” Steve looked at him, a sheepish tinge taking over his serious-Captain expression for a moment. “Don't leave me out here like this.”

“Don't drop that thing on me first.” Bucky eyed the hulk of wood and metal compensating for a door. Steve huffed again, shifting his feet slightly to get a better angle.

“Deal.” Then he lifted the gate higher, the god-awful shriek of the framework splitting the air loud enough that there was no way nobody on the other side didn't hear it. The gate was protesting and visible tremors began to wrack Steve's body as he hoisted the impossible weight further. Finally he cleared a man-sized space beneath the wood, grunting in pain at his stretching muscles. “Go! Go!” He grit out, clearly suffering now.

Suddenly it wasn't amusing anymore, and Bucky dropped to the ground and scrambled hastily through the gap, bitterly aware of how much weight Steve was balancing and that it could crush him to dust in an instant. And then he was through, and thrust into the chaos of the courtyard beyond.

The first thing that met his eyes were bright, artificial lights clearly set up by Hydra to maximize visibility of the area for their agents. Bucky blinked away the sting then took note of the wide, square space he was in surrounded by four solid walls, stone steps cut into their surface and spiralling away out of view. A crudely erected wooden tower sat rudely in the middle of the courtyard, much newer than its medieval counterparts. Clearly Hydra had been in a rush to set up some sort of defence of their own.

Bucky turned and looked back at the expanse of the Western gate for anything that remotely looked like an opening mechanism, quickly scanning both sides to no avail. And then came the shooting. Bucky whipped the Hydra gun back off of his shoulder and began blasting fiercely into the sharp blurts of angry light aiming his way. He ducked behind a broad pillar to get out of the line of fire just as Falsworth emerged from the crawl space below the gate, and Bucky snatched him over quickly to his shelter of cover.

“How do I open the gate?!” He demanded, helping to pull the man to his feet. “There should be a lever or somethin', right?”

“I should imagine a winch wheel of sorts – follow the chains and you'll find the source!” Falsworth shouted back, adjusting his cap more securely from where it had been knocked loose from the crawl.

Bucky squinted in confusion, looking wildly around for any such chain before he noticed the thick loops winding down from that tower above the gate. He helped Falsworth drag Dernier into cover also, ensuring they were both uninjured, then peeked ever-so-carefully around the edge of the pillar for a way to the level above.

Sections of wall burst apart above his head and Bucky swiftly lost track of both Dernier and Falsworth once he ducked and ran for his life, slamming right into the alcove of the nearest spiral staircase and stumbling up it. His heartbeat bellowed in his ears, his boots off stone, the echoes bouncing back off the walls, trapped in the tiny space barely wide enough for his shoulders.

An unfamiliar ragged breath and heavy footsteps curling up behind him alerted Bucky that someone was following him, a few steps below and out of sight around the tight twists of the staircase. He knew he barely had time to stop – Steve was a sitting duck pinned at the gate, and the longer it took Bucky to find the winch the longer he would be stuck there – so he simply disposed of the Hydra agent chasing after him with a sharp, unexpected boot to the middle of the man's chest when he rounded the corner.

The Nazi yowled, tumbling backwards and disappearing from sight, though the loud thumps and other shouts of angry surprise that followed told of several agents that had attempted to follow him up also. Bucky pressed on, not wasting another second as he raced up the stairs and tumbled out onto the broad platform of the Western rampart. He glanced down into the courtyard below, noticing Dernier and Falsworth both keeping the other Nazis busy, then looked around in the direction of the tower we was seeking.

It was much larger than it had appeared from down below, and Bucky half expected medieval soldiers to come piling out of the door brandishing bows and arrows. Then another bullet whizzed past and sunk deeply into the stonework of the parapets, jolting him back to reality and the Nazis hunting him. Taking heed, Bucky shot skilfully back at his pursuers as he made a run for it, moving as fast as his legs could carry him toward the pointed doorway of the tower.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact – after I'd decided on the style of the fortress and the setting I wanted, I went looking for an appropriate location in Nazi-occupied Europe for the story to take place in. Once I'd picked Poland, I then happened to stumble upon what I can only say is a real life version of my fortress! :D I obviously took creative liberties with the scale and details (like creating a Western Gate and an Eastern Tower), but if anyone is interested in seeing it then check out this link: [Niedzica Castle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niedzica_Castle) x)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon-typical action ahead! Also, vague mentions of minor character death.
> 
> Art by Samthebirdbae - what an awesome drawing! Please make sure to give her love for all her hard work on this project! [samthebirdbaeOnTumblr ](https://samthebirdbae.tumblr.com/post/164418020593/he-was-getting-right-to-work-steve-noted-then)

 

Steve was beginning to regret his method of opening the gate. His muscles were squealing in agony beneath the weight, and if he had to hold the position any longer he feared his legs would snap in two. Still he adamantly refused to let it fall. He was getting in there, and he had the utmost faith in Bucky. Even if the dim mass of gunfire whirling away in the courtyard beyond the gate wasn't very encouraging...

“C'mon, Buck! C'mon c'mon c'mon...!” Steve hissed, barely able to speak at all. His breath was being dragged out from his chest in deep, painful grunts, his whole body trembling. This had been a stupid idea.

Then the gate slipped, sending Steve's racing heart jumping into his throat when his sweaty palms lost their grip on their purchase. But instead of falling to the ground and trapping his friends inside, the hunk of wood and metal paused, then began steadily lifting up on it's pulley system. The metal was no longer screaming like it had been under the unconventional force of Steve's hands. Instead, thick chains could be heard rattling up above.

Steve briefly closed his eyes in thanks to his best friend, then backed up a few steps and took the opportunity to shake out his aching muscles until the crawl space widened enough to accommodate his size. Bracing himself on the balls of his feet, he equipped his little shield, ducked and rolled swiftly through the gap, the immediate _rat-a-tat_ of bullets pinging against the metal the moment he reached the courtyard.

Falsworth was standing nearby, trapped by enemy fire and taking cover behind a stone pillar. He didn't seem too bothered about it, judging by the way he kept leaping out to shoot down a handful of Nazis every few seconds.

It seemed a hefty amount of the Hydra forces _had_ congregated after all – there were men poised upon the battlements of the opposite wall, others peeking down from rectangle windows in the main body of the fortress overlooking the courtyard, some hidden inside the Hydra snipers nest and more on the ground, swarming towards him with guns blazing. Steve didn't have time to worry about the others right now, just barrelled straight into the midst of the battle that was germinating all around.

He lost track of how many bodies he knocked down, how many bullets deflected noisily just inches from his face – he immersed himself in the fight, forgetting about all of his trepidations, his stinging muscles and even the captured prisoners of war. It was so hectic he had no time to think about anything else except the next incoming attack or where best to position his body to dodge and counter-strike.

A raucous _BANG!_ of a sniper's bullet punctuated the air, coming from somewhere behind Steve. He chanced a quick look over his shoulder, spotting the glint of Bucky's rifle poking through the narrow window of the tower over the gate and aiming into the wooden Hydra spire. There was another _BANG!_ from his position.

He was getting right to work, Steve noted, then turned to take down the next Hydra agent coming in on his back only to see that someone had beaten him to it; the Nazi was now a crumpled heap on the dirt with a pistol-shaped bruise to the side of his head, a panting Morita standing over him. Steve offered a breathless nod in thanks, glad to see the man, who then moved on again with a merry tip of his hat. Next came Dugan, charging in through the wide open gate and overly eager to get stuck into the action. His horseshoe moustache fluttered in concentration as he threw himself into the fight, using his gun, his fists, his knees and his heels to get the job done as extensively as possible. He looked a sight to be reckoned with.

Steve's confidence grew with his backup on the scene, and together the six out of seven Howling Commandos somehow managed to sway the fight in their favour. Bucky took out the last of the opposing snipers then turned his sights on the Nazis in the windows of the fortress, and finally began picking off the more unruly grounded agents who got too close to his fellow soldiers for his liking.

By the time Steve next looked up they'd almost cleared the courtyard. In fact, they'd fared so well that another bout of agents were running in to pick up the slack, spilling from an archway leading into the courtyard. But the Howling Commandos were nearly spent, and Steve didn't think they could pull this off again for round two. Looking around quickly for anything to come to his aid, he'd barely made the decision before throwing his shield into the spindly legs of the dormant snipers nest.

The solid metal cut right through the wooden structure, causing the steeple to sag and begin to keel over in the direction of the incoming squad of hostiles. One of his soldiers whooped behind Steve's shoulder but he didn't tear his eyes away from his mark as he caught his shield and sent it right back out.

Another of the legs splintered with a loud _CRACK!,_ the wood breaking apart completely and sending the tower toppling menacingly onto the Nazis below. Steve sharply pulled his shield up to cover his face, listening to the thunderous _crunch!_ when the broken tower landed and eclipsed the new wave of gunfire, efficiently snuffing it out at the source. Wooden shards and clouds of sawdust spewed in all directions, and Steve slowly, reluctantly lowered his shield to peer over the rim at the mess he'd just created single-handedly.

His brow crinkled in sorrow as he looked over the destruction, the scene now cold and silent save for the Howlies' calls of victory behind him. Steve swallowed hard to dislodge the sickly reminder of yesterday's formidable mission from his mind...

_The large pillar turned over on itself in its descent, casting a long spike of a shadow over the pit filled with both ally and enemy battling it out below. It collided mightily with the support beam closest to it, splaying red hot bricks over those men with no hope of escape. A new commotion began in the battle as Nazi and POW alike became aware of the metal pillars around the room collapsing onto each other like dominoes, steadily breaking the building apart at the seams._

_Their screams pierced deep behind Steve's scrunched eyelids before the deafening thunder when the ceiling finally collapsed erased them all from existence, sending terrible vibrations through the ground and up the numb, shaking fibre of his bones._

“And _that_ is why they send us out on the big assignments!” Dugan bellowed, thumping a congratulatory hand on Steve's back and dragging his attention away from the pile of wood and buried Hydra bodies. The soldier didn't seem to feel the shivers still ghosting through his Captain now.

“I was thinking, perhaps Stark could give us _all_ one of those fancy shields there. I think I'd be pretty nifty with it.” Falsworth puffed out his chest, coming to a stop beside Dugan.

Steve interrupted their good-hearted laughter, a worried frown deep between his brows. “Is anyone hurt?” He asked in concern, giving his friends a thorough once over, tugging them a little too roughly this way and that to double check. When Morita and Dernier appeared a moment later he gave them the same scrutinizing treatment.

“Surprisingly: no.” Falsworth observed, eyeing Steve in confusion at the over-protective manhandling.

“I got clipped, but it's not serious.” Morita presented his right arm and the shallow gash across the curve of his shoulder. “I'd say we were all pretty lucky.” He swatted off Dernier's persistent attempts to see and fix up the damage himself.

Everyone was more than a little grubby after the battle, but in the glare of the harsh lights no more of the dark stains seemed to belong to them. It helped to ease the knot winding tightly in Steve's ribcage.

He looked up when Bucky emerged from the bottom of a spiral staircase that came down from the battlements, his stride and easy pace suggesting he too had escaped unscathed. Steve let out a long breath of relief.

“You made it!” Bucky greeted him, a smirk toying with his mouth. Steve gave him a wry look when he realised they were still on the topic of his prying open the gate with his bare hands, before he inevitably gave in to the ruse.

“Thanks, Buck.” He clapped a grateful hand on his friend's shoulder when he approached, allowing some of the tension to melt off of his own posture.

“Where would you be without me, huh?” Bucky shook his head at his childhood friend's reckless history, the shadow of his smile trailing off when he caught sight of the agitation still lingering on his Captain's features.

Steve looked deliberately away, trying to get back into the head-space he needed to continue with the mission: he couldn't afford to become compromised due to his own guilt, not when good men were still in need of rescue.

He examined the towering view of the fortress around them, squinting to make sense of what was beyond the glaring artificial lights in the courtyard. Looming shadows tapered up into multiple towers and the large, distant, rectangle Keep where the deadly cannon sat atop the roof. It all appeared much more vast than he'd been anticipating, and it was undoubtedly going to be a longer night than they'd planned for.

He tore his gaze away and reached for a smart little palm-sized radio tucked into his belt, courtesy of Howard Stark, then tuned in and held the gadget up to his lips. “Gabe? How we lookin' out there?”

There was a few seconds of static before the reply came through. “No signs of enemy reinforcements. You're good to go.”

“Roger that. Keep your head down and stay alert for any changes.”

“Already on it, Cap.”

“You'd better let the Colonel know we've breached the courtyard and are heading inside. This looks like it could take a while – we'll let you know when to call in our ride. Over and out.” The radio crackled then went dead and Steve tucked it away again, glad that his hands were no longer shaking. He looked around at his friends who were all waiting patiently for his next order.

Steve felt his throat go dry under their expectant faces and locked eyes with Bucky when the cold prickling of doubt washed over his skin. His friend just watched him patiently, as focused and attentive as the others, but he looked serious, concern visible in his eyes. Then he offered a subtle shift in stance and expression to encourage Steve to continue, exactly the push he'd needed.

They were in the field, he reminded himself, and now was not the time to balk under pressure. Steve tried to grasp that pure adrenaline spike that had fuelled him on during the fight just minutes ago.

“You all know where you're headed next?” He used the guise of readjusting the straps of his shield on his forearm to avoid their eyes.

“Um... up.” Morita said simply, pointing in the direction of the monster cannon on the roof.

Steve remembered they'd gone over the plan a hundred times already and realised that apparently he was the only one who deemed a refresher necessary. “Yeah, you're going up there with Dugan. Bucky, you're going to the dungeons. Dernier and Falsworth are setting up explosives...”

“I'm going with the Sarge, Cap. To free the POWs.” Falsworth reminded him patiently.

Steve floundered, taking a breath to start again. “Right.”

“We got it, relax. It's gonna be fine, Stevie, I promise.” Bucky interrupted before he could make a fool of himself again, elbowing Steve reassuringly with a gentle tone to his voice. “We know what we're doing. You just focus on lookin' for Fertig or anything useful about Schmidt's location, okay?” Bucky's ice blue eyes watched him closely, with still a little colour of concern in their depths behind his bravado.

Steve willed up all of the determination that he could, fitting it into place against his skin like a suit of armour. “Okay. You're right.” He straightened his posture, looking around his fellow soldiers once more. “Let's step to it.”

With those words, the Howling Commandos all swept inside the largest door off the courtyard, becoming swathed in darkness in the stone chamber beyond. The entrance was big and startlingly empty, as though it had been plundered of all its fineries to leave only the bare staircase. The Hydra agents had sporadically set up some lights in the dark, these ones buzzing angrily in their little boxy cages and purely succeeding in darkening the corners that their weak glow couldn't reach. Spiral stairs wound into the walls on each side of the men, tight enough to rival the look of those outside.

Steve turned to face his friends, causing the five men to stop in their tracks. “I'll meet you all on the roof. Be careful, and good luck.”

“You too, Cap.” Came the joint response, and then the Howling Commandos split up into their preassigned pairs and swiftly disappeared into their designated stairways and side doors, spreading out inside the huge castle fortress.

Steve was left alone, and he wasn't sure if that furthered or reduced his sense of trepidation when there was nobody left to impress but himself. He couldn't see the ceiling up above him, just a low-hanging darkness that could have stretched on for a thousand miles, but the trail of hazy lights leading up the grand staircase told him of where he needed to go.

Tightening his grip on the shield intended for a super hero, Steve Rogers kept his footfalls soft and his senses sharp as he ventured boldly into the unknown depths of the fortress.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Down in the lower levels below, the corridors only seemed to become narrower the further Bucky and Falsworth travelled, blinking through the sickly artificial lights illuminating slabs of stone in the walls. They crept past low open archways and pools of darkness beyond each door, peering scrutinizingly into each one before continuing on their way again empty handed.

Bucky stayed a few steps in front of Falsworth, glad his friend was with him – the endless twists and turns and harrowing lack of any obstacles so far was doing awful things to his imagination. He was itching to reach the POWs and bring them the hope and relief of escape that they'd probably already believed impossible. And if he happened to bump into some Nazi soldiers on his way, Bucky's restless trigger finger wasn't going to hesitate.

An empty, chill breeze ghosted through the bare hallways and amplified the sense of how large the fortress was, even if they were only confided to the same view of four walls stretching away ahead of them. By the time they'd turned down multiple corridors and two more flights of stairs without so much as a glimpse of any POWs or Hydra agents, Bucky began to believe they were, for the moment, alone. Even so, he almost jumped out of his skin when Falsworth's nonchalant voice spoke up from behind him.

“He was acting a little odd, wouldn't you say? The Captain?”

Bucky looked at his fellow soldier, watching as the man simply checked out the latest pitch black room from the arched doorway as though he hadn't spoken at all. Bucky stalled, unsure of what to say: of course he'd noticed the way Steve had appeared shaken up after the seize of the courtyard. The battle outside must have taken a lot out of him, especially when his confidence was so delicate currently...

“It was a tough fight. He'll be fine.” He said instead, continuing on for a few more feet and hoping the subject would drop. Falsworth followed, and the two men resumed their stealthy check of another identical corridor.

“You two are so transparent, you know that? You're like a schoolboy lying to protect his honour.” The Brit piped up again, unfazed when Bucky looked round in surprise. Falsworth met his eyes genially, then his expression phased with thoughtful remorse. “It's yesterday's car crash of a mission isn't it? He hasn't seemed quite right after that...” The soldier pressed on, passing by and crossing the hard cobbled ground. Bucky sighed, slowly trailing along behind him this time.

“Would _you_ seem right after being responsible for leaving 500 men to die in there? Steve might be Captain America but he's human just like you an' me.” He said, pinching his brows together sadly.

A faint rustle of movement through the next approaching door caught their attention, and together, Bucky and Falsworth crept closer and wheeled around the archway as one, guns raised and fingers warningly grazing the triggers. A crow cawed as it burst out from the darkness inside, startling both men when it flew over their heads and back along the corridor in the direction they'd come. Silence ensued, and so the soldiers warily continued on their way again, limbs tingling with adrenaline and their pulses ringing in their ears.

“Do you think he's compromised? That he's unfit to complete the mission?” Falsworth asked as though nothing had interrupted them. Bucky swallowed down his renewed sense of unease at how deep they'd travelled into the fortress, his eyes making threats out of every nook and shadow that stretched in the false lights around them. He tried to remember where their conversation had left off.

“He's gonna give everything he's got to save as many people as he can. Would you call that compromised?” He met Falsworth's calm inquiring gaze with solid conviction in his own.

The Brit smiled a little, his pencil thin moustache twisting at the corners. “No. I call that 'the Cap'.”

Bucky huffed in amusement. “I dunno 'bout that. No matter how tall he is now or what the news reels are callin' him, that drive to do right ain't comin' just from Captain America. He's been that way for as long as I can remember.”

Falsworth's eyes crinkled kindly when he smiled properly, reminding Bucky that he was grateful he wasn't exploring this part of the fortress alone. “Then I suppose he'll be just fine.”

With that, the men got back to work, reaching the end of this corridor and coming once again to another winding staircase. When they descended, Bucky wondered how far Steve had made it in the vast castle stretching away above them and if he was coping alright with the demons biting at his heels...

He settled his concerns into his grip on his gun, mindful of the practically non-existent clap of his boots with each careful step.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Steve crept down a draughty corridor, the whistling wind a constant reminder of how high he'd climbed through the fortress. Now, through the next pane-less window carved into stone up ahead, only a thin sliver of sky was visible with dark blotches of clouds passing slowly against the night.

Two hostiles emerged from one of the heavy medieval doors lining the hallway, talking quietly amongst themselves in a language Steve couldn't understand. He slowed, crouched low and poised until the soldiers settled further down the corridor between his current position and the window, and subsequently, his path onwards through the building. Biding his time, Steve carefully slipped his shield from his left arm to his right, eyeing the secure-looking helmets and body armour he'd grown used to associating with Hydra agents. He still felt a little antsy, but with a target in his sights his serum-enhanced body seemed to take over, sneaking up behind and taking out both agents before they had a chance to even turn around.

The Nazis slid to the ground with more volume than he would have liked, causing little inquiring noises then hissing German voices to carry from around the corner to Steve's location. He braced himself, timing a throw of his shield just right to send the first of the reinforcements flying back into the wall with a painful _crack!_ that split stone. He caught it again in time to shield himself from the frantic bursts of gunfire that followed the second Hydra agent's arrival, crouching low to the ground to protect his legs also.

He was just contemplating how to get close enough to put this guy down when one of the solid oak doors behind him clunked on its hinges, making Steve's stomach drop and his head turn sharply in acknowledgement of the noise.

The door opened and three more Nazis spilled out into the corridor, causing Steve to react instinctively before he allowed himself to become trapped or shot; he rolled sideways across the floor, kicking out to sweep one of the agent's legs out from under him in passing and send him clattering ungracefully to the ground. Steve propelled himself back up to his feet, flinching away from the bullets still roaring over his head and grabbed the next assailant to his chest as a human shield, aware of the sickening shudder of the man's body when it caught the bullets intended for Captain America. A third Nazi was coming in hot at Steve's right, that gaunt, masked face peering at him from behind the barrel of a gun that tracked him with cruel intent. He barely paused to think – just grabbed the agent by the head and forced him crashing into contact with the reinforced helmet of the man already standing slumped in his grasp, bullets still thudding into the torso.

Goggles shattered when he banged their heads together and the Hydra agent yowled and stumbled away, dizzy and disorientated, and Steve took the moment's opportunity to pull a knife from the corpse in his grip and throw it hard down the corridor towards the Nazi still persistently attempting to shred him to ribbons. The gunfire finally seized, leaving Steve's ears ringing and his heart dancing rapidly in his chest as he dropped the man's body and leapt for the first one again who was just managing to regain his footing after his rather nasty fall.

Steve jutted his knee into the man's throat then pulled him up again by his shoulders to send a furious punch into the side of the mask. The Nazi's yell of pain stuttered out when he fell to the floor and, this time, he stayed there.

“Curse you, Kapitän Amerika!”

Steve turned to face off against the last man standing, meeting and holding the bloodshot gaze through the broken goggles of the mask. They ran at each other in the same moment, the Nazi pulling free a shorter, smaller pistol than before from the confines of his armour. Steve's instincts flared and he jumped high, spinning around to bring the indestructible disc of red, white and blue slamming down on the Hydra agent before he had the chance to pull the trigger into Steve's ribs.

The pistol, the Nazi, and the vibranium shield crashed to the stone floor of the hallway, the reverberating hum of metal singing out far and wide like the final note of a symphony. Steve panted, eyes darting along the length of the corridor in search of any other surprise reinforcements but everything was now deathly still. The shrill whistle of the wind was now a whisper behind his laboured breaths and the echo of the fight still swimming around in his head.

Steve took a moment to assess himself for damage before he slowly stood back up; one man amidst seven motionless bodies. His skin was whole and healthy, not one bullet having hit its mark, but he burned with an anger he knew was borne of impatience to get to Fertig and end this mission as quickly as possible. The buzz of adrenaline was still stinging around his veins and taking its time to begin to slowly ebb away as he pressed on, on high alert for any more Nazis informed of his presence due to the racket of gunfire.

A bullet whizzed right by his stomach the moment Steve turned the next corner, and he was startled by an extremely stealthy Hydra agent that had been waiting for him, perched silently just around the corner and out of view from the previous fight in the hopes of getting in a sly kill. Affronted by the surprise attack and irritable at the further hold up, Steve reacted instantly by hastily pushing the Nazi through the glass-less window and out into the long descent of open air below.

He barely heard the man's scream, and deciding to waste no more time in seeing through his part of the mission, Steve made himself continue smoothly on in the direction of the Eastern Tower.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Things had so far been uneventful at the lookout point. Just a lot of grass, waiting, and watching the perfectly still, composed perimeter. Gabe had already finished one of his sandwiches and made himself a comfortable little nest reclining against a spindly tree on the hillside, and had ensured to give himself the best, most wholesome view of the distant fortress.

He currently had his eyes pressed to a pair of binoculars and focused intently on a rapidly moving speck of black against the midnight sky. It looked like someone tumbling almost comically from a window near the Eastern Tower, and Gabe smirked when he pictured the Cap headbutting some poor Hydra sucker off the building.

“You go, Cap.” He said to himself, his smile remaining even when he lost sight of the tiny falling Nazi. Gabe chuckled quietly, setting the binoculars back down on his lap.

He'd just picked up his last sandwich when the first suspicious sound of the night wormed its way to his attention. He sat up instantly, straining his ears: he could hear what sounded like wood crackling but it was coming from nearby opposed to the direction of the fortress, which meant it wasn't due to another raucous firefight from his fellow Howlies...

Gabe scrambled around on his hands and knees, keeping low to the ground to avoid being seen when another, much louder _CRACK!_ announced the sudden arrival of one, then two, then _four_ Hydra tanks driving over trees nearby and crushing their way through the forest as though it were crafted from no more than pliable grains of sand. He kept perfectly still, not making a sound despite the hard hammering in his chest and the wideness of his eyes at the sheer force of cavalry making its way toward Gabe's friends. There were a hoard of trucks tagging along too, no doubt fully loaded with more soldiers ready to head in there on foot.

Gabe waited until the troops were just far enough away to dive back to his post and rummage around with his equipment as quickly and efficiently as possible.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Steve was growing only more restless the higher he climbed, putting one foot in front of the other and preparing himself for the confrontation that could take place at the end of the trail. He was ascending a never-ending staircase that carried him higher still: wooden steps that dropped off to nothing on the other side, a big empty space with only the thin ledge clinging to the walls to stop him from falling. The rhythmic pounding of his footfalls followed him up the vast, cylindrical void of the tower interior, going up and up and up...

Steve kept climbing until he was forced to come to a stop, suddenly and inexplicably faced with a dead end. His brows turned up in confusion and frustration when no amount of looking up or down the staircase seemed to present any answers for the absolute lack of anything further. No doors, no more steps... Just a wall and a cold trail he'd come all this way for.

“Dammit!” He hissed, reaching up and roughly tugging off his helmet in the hopes it would clear his mind a little. Steve momentarily allowed himself to lean on the ledge of one of the narrow pane-less windows dotting up the tower, accepting the breeze like cool fingers on his forehead.

He'd been certain he was going in the right direction, but now there was nowhere left to go but back down the way he'd come. At the unexpected twist in events, Steve couldn't help but begin to doubt himself.

 _Had_ he been going the right way? Had he already taken down Fertig without realising it was him beneath that mask and in turn, lost a valuable lead in stopping hydra in the process? Was the Warden even here at all, and if so, was Steve just too incompetent to be able to find him...?

He eventually had to face the fact that he'd explored this route as far as he was able, and that there was nothing in the Eastern Tower after all. Once that thought settled indignantly into his mind, Steve couldn't shake the feeling he'd been led on a wild goose chase while the Hydra agents secretly ambushed Bucky and the others.

He should have gone with them to save the POWs, he cursed himself, and damn Fertig and Schmidt and Hydra! Steve shook his head in exasperation at himself and his current circumstances, feeling like even more of a failure and an idiot than he had before. This aimless search had been going on too long now, and enough was enough!

He was just about to set off toward the dungeons when his radio crackled with an incoming message. “Cap? Cap, you there?” Gabe's voice was deliberately quiet, but there was a slight edge to his usual composure that had Steve hastily pulling the device free from his belt.

“I'm here, Gabe, what's wrong? Are you alright?” He tried to ignore the curl of fear kicking off in his gut and kept his own swirling emotions out of his tone.

“Yeah, yeah I'm fine. But we got heavy Hydra reinforcements coming in from the North.”

Steve sighed in vexation, beginning to pace back and forth on his narrow ledge in an effort to iron out some of his nerves. “That would explain the lack of hostiles so far. How many are we talking about?”

“Four tanks and a lot of trucks. You'd better hurry it up in there...!”

A Hydra tank was bad news on a good day, not to mention four of them! It was also much earlier than he'd been expecting any reinforcements, and at this rate they'd never get out of the fortress in time, never mind with 1,000 POWs...

“How long until they reach the fortress?” He asked finally, dreading the answer.

Gabe's voice crackled through his radio again. “They'll be in shooting range in twenty minutes, tops.”

Steve hung his head and closed his eyes, bracing himself up against the wall while he tried to think. The most important thing here were the prisoners of war and getting them home safe, he affirmed. Not Fertig and Steve's fruitless quest to find him, not Dernier blowing the place to smithereens, not Dugan and Morita's attempts to strip Hydra of one of its meanest weapons...

Steve opened his eyes. “Gabe, radio Dugan and tell him not to disable that cannon. Get Dernier up there with them and tell them to hold off the reinforcements for as long as they can and by any means necessary – we need to buy ourselves some time to get the POWs outta here. I'm gonna head down and help Bucky and Falsworth – there's nothing up here and I'm not going to waste any more time looking for Fertig.” As he spoke, Steve began hurrying back down the spiral staircase, feeling more confident now that he had a somewhat solid plan.

But he skidded to a stop at what Gabe said next. “There's a light on at the top of the Eastern tower. Where are you?”

Steve looked around, blinking at the darkness misting in the empty cavern around him. “I'm in the tower. There's nothing here. It's almost pitch black.”

There was a confused silence in which the radio hummed faintly, before Gabe spoke again. “...there's definitely a light, and I can see a shadow moving around inside the window. You must be right below him.”

Looking around himself again, Steve triple checked that all he was seeing was darkness and a long fall down the middle of the staircase. “There's nowhere else for me to go, Gabe. It's a dead end, I'm sorry.”

“Are you sure you're in the right tower?”

“Yes, I'm sure.” But even so, Steve doubled back up to the top of the stairs and stuck his head out of the window, just in case. The ground looked miles away below him, disorientating and dark and stunning. He could see some of the body of the fortress too – the corner of the Keep, the tiny courtyard they'd breached, so far away from here – but from this angle all the rest of the view was inky mountains stretching away into a black horizon. This was definitely the tower, and there was definitely no way up.

Over the sharp hissing of wind whipping at his face, a faint, melodic tune seeped into Steve's ears out of nowhere. It sounded like a whisper of words, stolen out of somebody's mouth and rushed away into the sky, but the more he listened, the more pronounced the music became. And it _was_ music, orchestral and even more hauntingly beautiful when floating down to him with a slight echo seeping out around the notes before it was snatched away again.

Equal parts puzzled and seduced by the mystery, Steve turned to look up at the sky, at the large stone bricks curving around the outside of the Eastern tower, and at the warm yellow glow of a lamp spilling out of the window high up and directly above him.

This one had glass, though it was open a crack and allowed the sweet German record to spill out into the air. As he watched, the light flickered as though somebody had just walked by it. Steve ducked back inside the cool stillness of the staircase, feeling like he'd just jumped from a speeding plane again.

He readied himself, squaring his shoulders. “You get Morita and Dugan to hold off the tanks, let me worry about Fertig. Over and out.” He told Gabe as he tugged his helmet back onto his head then tucked his radio back into his utility belt and manoeuvred his body onto the sloping window ledge without hesitation. It was difficult to fit his broad shoulders through the tight space, but then Steve was squeezing out of the window and onto the exterior wall of the tallest tower of the fortress.

He held himself steady with his feet on the ledge and reached up to secure stable handholds and plot a feasible way that he could pull this off. The soft music was soothing against his terrified, excited heartbeat, and Steve just winced at himself and his own reckless plan and started to climb.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is violence, descriptions of torture and a mild panic attack ahead, so please proceed with caution if that's something you're uncomfortable with. From here we're starting to enter darker territory, and if you'd rather double check that the topics covered here will be okay for you, then skip to the end notes for a brief run through of the contents of the chapter :^)
> 
> Artwork for this chapter is by the amazing Samthebirdbae x)

 

A dark wooden door with rusted metal décor sat heavily in its frame, slightly ajar and tracing artificial light from the hallway into the room beyond. Two armed soldiers approached it quietly, slowing to peer cautiously through the gap.

“There's a cage in here.” Bucky said stiffly, keeping his voice low as he pressed his shoulder into the door to swing it inwards with a resounding groan from the hinges. He steadied his breathing, bracing himself for the inevitable attack they were still to happen upon, and stilled his twitching fingers into those of a qualified sniper.

He and Falsworth both jumped to attention, sweeping the room with their rifles raised to find no enemies inside. Instead it appeared to be some sort of office, with mountains of books piled up on desks, scrolls and loose papers strewn over every surface and even spilling onto the floor. Notes were scrawled onto scraps pinned to the walls, written in a wild mixture of both German and English that switched mid-sentence. Bucky didn't try to make sense of the mind of a man mad enough to join Hydra, and he swiftly turned his attention away from the nonsensical scribbles.

He had indeed spotted a cage before; four feet high, tucked against the wall with rough metal bars that were much too thick to hope to escape. It was closed, locked no doubt, and Bucky's gut roiled when he noticed the slumped shape lying along the bottom inside.

“Hey,” He beckoned to Falsworth, alarm pitching his voice, and together they made their way to the cage where Bucky crouched down before the lock. He tried in vain to open the door, but it didn't even budge. “Can you see the key anywhere?” Falsworth began searching the desks while Bucky pressed his face to the bars, speaking to the inhabitant this time. “Hey mister?” He asked quietly, trying not to think about the utter absence of movement from the person inside. It didn't take long for the truth to sink in.

“There's no key, or if there is, we have no hope of finding one amongst all this mess.” Falsworth huffed, splaying his arms in frustration toward the unruly papers everywhere.

“Doesn't matter, he's dead.” Bucky sighed, feeling helpless that they were already too late for the first and only prisoner they'd found so far. “But I don't want to leave him like this...”

Falsworth re-joined him at the cage, hands on his hips and a thoughtful purse to his lips. “Is it worth giving away our location by shooting the lock?”

“Probably not.” Bucky hated to admit, sadly watching the limp frame of the elderly man inside the cage.

Falsworth sounded regretful about it too, shuffling uneasily on his feet. “Well then. Unless you happen to be skilled in the art of lock-picking, I suppose we'd better leave him be.”

Bucky hesitated, turning to send a little half-smile up at his friend. “You ain't ever picked a lock before...?” He almost laughed at the look that appeared on his friend's face.

“Unlike some, I wasn't brought up in the streets of New York City. I suppose everybody there has to learn the tricks of the trade if they want to survive...”

“Not everyone, just us working class who like ourselves a little more'n we've been given.” Bucky allowed himself a short laugh at Falsworth's next expression before turning away to study the lock more intricately.

“Oh yes? And what would the Captain say if he knew about that...?” He could practically hear the rise in the Brit's eyebrow on the words.

“You kiddin'? He's the one who showed me how.” Bucky said without looking up from his examination. The grin at Falsworth's shocked chuckle was short-lived, when his gaze unwittingly caught sight of the man still imprisoned by Hydra in his death. Bucky sighed again, sadly. “I can't pick this – the mechanisms are all wrong.”

“Hmm...” Falsworth looked around them again and his footsteps carried away around the room, fading to background noise when Bucky honed all of his focus in on the dead prisoner. He shifted closer, gripping the bars and wishing there was something more he could do for the poor man. His foot brushed something that clinked on the ground at the base of the cage; a little pair of spectacles, alone and neglected.

The sight of the discarded possession made Bucky swallow and he carefully picked up the glasses and cradled them gently in his hand. Dusting off the lenses with his thumb, he wondered who the prisoner inside could have been, once.

The cage wasn't too deep, and after a moment's thought, Bucky reached in through the bars in an effort to reach the man's shoulder. He stretched determinedly, getting a grip on the neck of his shirt and hauling the body over onto his back.

The tinkle of shattering glasses was muffled behind the sound Bucky's boots made on the ground when he scurried back from the bars, his heart suddenly in his throat and his skin prickling in fear, disgust, and the ghost of pain that once was.

_Blurry shapes crowded over him, poking and prodding his arms with needles and nasty little instruments that Bucky's clouded brain couldn't hope to comprehend. He was lying back on something, a table, and could barely make out the faces swimming in and out of focus up above. He tried to talk, to ask them who they were and what the hell they thought they were doing with him, but his tongue was heavy and his lips numb, and his voice died before it even left his chest._

_Something glinted above him, like a star, his sluggish mind offered. The shiny object lowered itself towards his face, splitting into two, then suddenly there was a new man talking to him, his beard white and his accent thick and German and too much for Bucky to handle in his hopeless, half-dreaming state. All he could concentrate on were those stars – a little pair of spectacles framing gaunt, dark eyes as they gazed down upon him. He tried to hold onto the words intended for him but then the world disappeared and suddenly a pain like no other ripped through his veins, as fierce and viscous as lightning striking his body._

“Look at all this: it's a minefield of data.” Falsworth's pondering voice snapped Bucky back to the present, chasing away his distorted memory and soothing the bile clawing at the back of his throat. He looked around at his friend, taking deliberate breaths in an effort to disguise his sudden horror and indulge Falsworth in his simple examination of the Hydra study.

“Yeah?” He feigned interest, standing shakily and deliberately creating space between himself and the prisoner inside the cage. The _Nazi_ inside the cage. Bucky could have spit on the body, but then Falsworth approached again with his eyes still raking the notes pinned to the walls.

“I think one of us should go on ahead to find the POWs and the other stays here and checks out all this paperwork. Who knows what it could contain.” The soldier brushed his hand thoughtfully through a thick pile of documents on the desk beside them, the rustling of papers loud in the room and Bucky's pounding brain.

He nodded in agreement, still breathless and stinging inside from his horrid flashback. Falsworth hadn't seemed to notice, at least. “You go on ahead. I'll catch up.” Bucky said, his eyes fixed darkly on the old man's body still separated from him behind iron bars. The initial fizzle of terror from before had now burnt down to the perilous growl of an ember. Bucky clenched his jaw in loathing.

“Alright then.” Falsworth moved back to the door with his gun in his hands and his posture betraying not the slightest sign of fear. Then the man paused in the doorway, looking back over his shoulder. “And do try not to die before you reach us, will you? Or I'll be forced to take all the credit for this myself.” His lips twitched into a teasing smile.

Bucky managed a smirk in return. “Love you too, man – now get outta here! And be careful!” He waved away his fellow soldier, who's light chuckle drifted away down the hall outside and left Bucky suddenly, utterly alone. Only this time he was glad for it.

After taking a moment to regain control over himself, Bucky slowly approached the cage again. His blood boiled and his stomach wriggled like it wanted to escape from his skin, but he knelt down before the body once again, this time taking the time to carefully soak in the features: the old man looked positively haggard, too thin behind his straggling white beard and his eyes were hollowed and closed in death. Just the sight of a dead man was unsettling enough, and Bucky could also liken the scene to that of a victim trussed up in a cell by evil Nazis, as though the inhabitant hadn't been one of them himself.

But the man was unmistakable.

“The hell'd you do to get stuck in here, huh?” He muttered darkly, all sense of remorse gone at the conditions of the prisoner's death. Bucky found a sick sense of irony in the moment, now that he was looking down upon his own imprisoned captor, trapped and helpless and with nobody coming to save _him_ this time.

It wasn't as satisfying as he thought it should be.

  


~ ~ ~ ~

_Five months earlier_

_~ ~_

Patrols passed by in the corridor, snapping foreign commands and brandishing their guns at some of the noisier cages. The room was burning up, all the writhing soldiers contributing to the heat; the air felt thick and damp, and the claustrophobic proximity of too many bodies only made their situation more unbearable.

A low vibration was rising through the stone floor, causing thick, iron bars of the large cages to quiver and sing along subtly. They were crowded, with too many people inside than they were built to contain, and Bucky pressed his cheek further against the bars of his cage to peer out into the rusty hallway beyond.

He couldn't yet see what most of his regiment were shouting at, but moving shadows and silhouettes kept catching his eye as they shifted past in his peripheral vision. He could feel tremors rattling beneath him as he leaned heavily against the bars, and Bucky flinched when someone almost crushed him as they fought their way to the front of the small space.

Figures were approaching out in the corridor, passing through splintered shafts of light from above – men masked and dark like Grim Reapers coming to collect doomed souls. They were dragging a stream of soldiers behind them back to their cells, all with oil on their hands and sweat on their brows. The reverberations from heavy machinery still rattling the cage beneath Bucky's touch suddenly made sense.

Metal squeaked as the cages were opened and workers thrust inside, their eyes downcast and their shoulders hunched from a long day's labour. At the sight, Bucky curled his fists even tighter around the metal grating cruelly into his skin and bit his tongue to stop from spilling curses that would inevitably aid no-one.

The Nazis were clearly looking for men to replace the workers they'd lost and began to usher others out of the cages at gunpoint. Some soldiers protested of course, until Bucky started to realise that something bigger was happening than a simple swap of prisoners.

Suddenly, flashes of blue and an alien screech of electric bullets started bouncing around the shadowy hallway. The lights illuminated rows of cages that were emptying rapidly as prisoners started gushing out into the corridor all at once, a frantic, bloody riot picking up right there in the hall.

There were loud shouts and commands spoken in German, heavy boots hurriedly closing in on all sides, the POWs shouting in malice and vengeance and that same god-awful sound of blue fire spitting from Nazi guns. Bucky felt his blood start pumping in anticipation and adrenaline through his veins when he realised the soldiers were making a run for it. Rotting away in this cage for hours had been enough to fuel his want for revenge against the captors of the 107th regiment, to feed him fantasies of busting out of this place and socking these old Nazis so hard they never got back up again. Bucky's cell-mates began pouring out of his cage next, and he found that now was the moment he'd been waiting for.

Taking the opportunity to join them in a bid for freedom, he pushed himself off the bars and dived into the sea of soldiers, heading through the crowd and resisting the instinct to cover his ears at the huge ruckus playing out all along the corridor.

One of the soldiers of his regiment whooped at his back, alive with furious intent as he raced right past Bucky's face in the direction of their German captors. The next second, the soldier had evaporated in a fizzle of blue light and ash, leaving Bucky to stare helplessly in his wake. He ducked as another fiery bullet swept past his position and forced himself deeper into the mass of the brawl.

An enemy soldier stepped out into his path with an icy glow beginning to hum to life deep inside the gun in the man's hands, spitting out little sparks of crackling electricity as it flared to life. Bucky skidded to a halt, his heartbeat louder in his ears than the voices of the remains of the 107th regiment combined. He sized up his opponent and was met with a black helmet and bleak rectangle goggles boring right into his eyes. The sight instantly sent the righteous fury he'd pent up for this moment wilting under the flat stare upon him – he could feel his rapid breathing and his wide-eyed expression giving away his initial fear, but then his attention honed in drastically until it was just him and his target like he'd practised out in the field.

He was the gun, and this man was about to receive a bullet to the brain.

Bucky charged and managed to tackle the German guard to the ground, pinning him down by straddling his torso. The Nazi struggled and tried to dislodge him but Bucky scooped up the discarded gun and used the hard end to crack down on the black helmet, attempting to render the man limp and still beneath him.

Instead, the Nazi snarled, his mask flickering when blue flashes lit up the corridor like fireworks and more of the soldiers managed to force their way out of the open cages and join the riot writhing on all sides. Bucky repeated the blow, harder this time, and felt sick as he used all of his strength to keep the man pinned beneath him. The helmet was obviously hardy, as the guard still continued to fight back despite Bucky's best efforts to put him down. The next thing he knew, something solid swung up into his jaw with a force like a speeding freight train and tossed him over onto his back where he collided with the ground hard enough to bruise. He dropped the gun somewhere and then he was being crushed as a huge weight pinned him down by the chest, the Nazi's legs clamping painfully against his sides in retaliation.

Bucky cried out, scrabbling at the dark shape on top of him as he tried to get a hit in anywhere he could reach. The legs squeezed against his ribs with a worse pressure than before and he wheezed out the last of his breath, struggling to regain momentum to fight. Spidery hands were on his face, punching brutally and breaking the skin. It stung worse than he remembered, it always did, but Bucky had been in enough fist fights in his life to know better than to just give up. He dug his hands into the thick fabric of the Nazi's black uniform, gripping tightly as he tried to pull himself up off the floor.

A little red symbol on the fabric absently caught his eye; a strange picture, one he couldn't recall ever seeing in his time at war so far: a skull-like, six-legged octopus. He didn't recognize it, which meant they were dealing with an unknown enemy here...

Help suddenly seemed a long way off and the realisation sent a rock to the pit of Bucky's stomach, or maybe it was just the guard's fist. Blue bullets were still sparking, casting their glow against the walls and lighting up the black mask above Bucky. He could feel the heat pass overhead, the riot still fully underway, but had no means of checking to see who was winning.

As he continued to succumb to the Nazi's unrelenting fist, slowly the loud commotion from the soldiers drained in volume and the rumbling of the hidden machines somewhere in the building took over, thundering loudly through the hard floor and into his bones. Bucky didn't think he was even fighting back anymore, despite his efforts to thrash his way free – his fists slackened in the guard's uniform as he watched the back and forth of blue lights trailing dazzlingly across his tunnel vision.

The energy blasts were soothing when he didn't fear them. Bright and clear and beautiful...

“Oh no you don't!”

The weight atop his chest was suddenly wrenched away and Bucky blinked up at the sight of an American soldier with a little bowler hat and a huge horseshoe moustache. Dugan drove his heel into the guard's throat, crushing the wind and the life out of him until finally, he lay still.

Bucky sat and stared, forcing in full, deep breaths to refill his lungs and clear the black spots from his vision, momentarily at a loss for what to do as he watched Dugan tackle the next armed guard like a bulldozer. Finally he shifted to look around at the chaos ensuing around him: hazy cages and shadows stretching away into infinity were warped by the constant blue fireworks whizzing dangerously around the tightly packed space and Bucky's eyes stung with the glare of the bullets, no longer entranced. Another one of the soldiers fighting so close to his position evaporated into thin air as if to prove their fatal intention.

“You alright there, Sarge?” A broad, calloused hand extended towards him and Bucky allowed Dugan to help him to his feet. His limbs felt numb and prickly, his body as though it were made of the heaviest metal, and his face and ribs throbbed terribly, but he was alive.

“I'll be a hell of a lot better when we get outta here!” He grumbled over the racket, heaving under the strong thump of Dugan's palm against his aching back. “I'm glad you made it – I was starting to wonder if they'd got you back on the field!”

“Me? No chance!” His comrade exclaimed. Bucky swept up the Nazi gun he'd dropped earlier, familiarizing himself with the weight in his hands before he swapped a determined look with Dugan. Without wasting any more breath the two soldiers hurried along the corridor to where a sizeable group of others were making their escape, Bucky blasting bolts of fire into the face of the enemy in the process.

His heart was still hammering as he tripped over his feet and swivelled his head to locate any more incoming Nazis, though it was with a thrill of power this time as he pinpointed them in the blurry mass of figures all around and dissolved them where they stood. The gun thrived in his grip, grumbling with heat and making him feel somewhat invincible – Bucky had never wielded a weapon like it, and took it upon himself to shoot as many guards as he could see.

Dugan yelped and dived back to avoid a sizzling blue bolt aimed their way, the trail of the bullet flashing in an echo over Bucky's eyes. The moment he managed to clear his vision he rounded on their shooter and retorted with a bout of gunfire of his own, aiming up and blasting with his sniper's precision. He didn't see another dark shape melt out of the crowd and rapidly approach their position.

“Watch out!” Dugan yelled as the bulk of an armoured body smashed into Bucky's side, catching him off guard and causing him to drop the weapon as he collided into Dugan.

The two soldiers and one Hydra guard tumbled down a side passage between two of the cages and down a short staircase until they rolled to a tangled, painful stop. Bucky groaned under the full mass of Dugan's body, barely succeeding in pushing the man off of him before a hostile fist came crashing down out of nowhere. He dodged it just in time, rolling out of the way while his brain tumbled around in his skull.

The moment he stopped, he hauled himself to his feet using the lengths of rusted pipe that ran along the wall, taking in the sight before him that turned his exhausted legs to mulch: Dugan's moustache was bristling in rage while a Nazi gun was held charged and waiting at his temple. He'd been hauled to his knees and was glaring up at the guard holding him hostage with such loathing Bucky didn't doubt the man would take his chances just to get one last kick in.

The sounds of the break-out had stemmed increasingly from in the small closed off chamber they'd fallen into, and suddenly it all seemed so far away with the riot and the cages somewhere back up the passage they'd tumbled down. The short flight of stairs were close at Bucky's side but there was no plausible way that both he and Dugan could reach them before the Nazi would pull the trigger.

Bucky didn't dare move.

“Sarge – go! You can still get away!” Dugan's furious growl was silenced with a rough shake from the guard.

Bucky just clung to the wall with one arm and cradled his bruised ribs with the other, never once taking his eyes off the two men in front of him. His face was hot and sticky with blood that matted in his hair and stained his skin red; his body was somewhat broken, he was pretty sure he'd at least sprained a few bones; he felt wrecked, raw, grateful to be alive, but giving over one of his soldiers' lives to remain that way wasn't something Bucky could ever do.

Despite all of his pride, all of the rage at having been captured and imprisoned by their enemies... he surrendered.

“Don't.” He managed, exhausted. “Don't shoot.” He straightened up, grimacing against the sharp pinch in his side as he held his hands up in front of him.

A new figure slithered around him from the stairs, making Bucky's heart rush into his ears with the eerie grace the man possessed despite the thick _clump!_ of his boots. But what struck him the most was that the new Nazi wasn't wearing the nondescript armour of the other guards – instead, he had a thick jacket that tied at the waist with that same red symbol sitting proudly on his chest. Bucky watched him wearily, realising upon second inspection there was a tiny, sandy coloured ponytail scraped strictly back at the base of his skull.

He came to a stop before Dugan, mindlessly examining the soldier at their mercy. “ _What happened here?_ ” The Nazi snapped in German with a voice lighter than Bucky had been expecting, and he blinked as before his eyes the man's appearance revealed itself to be instead a harsh, androgynous looking female.

“ _That one_ _stole one of our weapons, mistress. He was shooting down our men._ ” The guard holding Dugan jerked his helmeted head in Bucky's direction. Even though he couldn't understand what was being said, the rest of the feeling drained from his bruised and aching limbs when the woman sharply turned on him with two nasty, evil looking eyes. Like black holes sucking out the life of whoever they landed on, vicious and unfeeling and almost completely black.

Evil Eyes blinked slowly at him, staring as if she wanted nothing more than to tear Bucky's throat out with her teeth. He held his ground defiantly, making himself meet that awful gaze despite the chills those black orbs sent to his gut. He recognised that stare, one he'd bore witness to plenty of times in his life: it was the look of a furious authoritative figure, glaring down upon the biggest troublemaker in the room.

Bucky swallowed and prayed they wouldn't shoot Dugan anyway.

The sound of multiple approaching guards clomped steadily louder, blocking out the static buzz of the gun armed at Dugan's temple when three more Nazis filed down the little staircase and swarmed around the room. They too had guns at the ready, and one approached Bucky to jab at him with the barrel. He resisted the urge to shove the guy away, if only for Dugan's sake.

Evil Eyes prowled deliberately closer and Bucky scowled at her, fighting to contain the fear jumping in his body at their current predicament. The Nazi stopped and peered at him unwaveringly for long, tense seconds, as though dissecting his very soul... Bucky almost turned to ice under that black glare, before she finally turned away to say something to the others in German. They spoke too quickly for Bucky to make out the words even if he didn't understand them all, but then he was gripped by the arms and Dugan was handed over to two of the guards and pointed back towards the direction of the cages.

“Hey! No!” Bucky protested, watching with guilt wallowing over him as the last he saw of his friend was his furious purple face when he was roughly manhandled up the staircase and escorted away.

Left alone with only Nazis for company, Bucky tugged against the hands on him if only to put up some sort of a fight. His bones throbbed sharply from his previous beating and he tensed painfully when Evil Eyes looked round at him again, fixated on him with that scornful, black stare. Bucky looked right back, refusing to appear afraid in the face of the enemy.

The guards babbled incomprehensible German to each other over the rush of blood in Bucky's ears until Evil Eyes interrupted them with a sharp “ _No_.” The babbling seized, making way for a heavy, expectant pause.

A deep shiver trickled down Bucky's spine when her pallid face, now much too close to his for comfort, contorted into an even creepier mask as she opened her mouth and exposed long, yellow teeth.

“ _Take him to Dr Zola._ ”

~ ~

  


“ _What is it? I am busy, I do not wish to be disturbed -”_

“ _Dr Zola. I have found a worthy candidate for your next experiments.”_

“Hey! Get offa me! I said get off!”

“ _Ah! Yes yes yes, this one looks like he'll do nicely. Put him over there on the table, the last one has proven to be yet another failure...”_

“ _The body...?”_

“ _Dump it with the others. I have no further use for it...”_

“Who are you?!”

“ _He has proven to be a handful already, Dr. He shot some of the guards in the riot downstairs before we got it under control.”_

“ _That's alright, just tie him down. Let me just get my... there.”_

“Hey – what was in that?! _Hey!_ ”

“ _Tie him_ _tighter_ _! Allow us time for the sedative to take hold...”_

“Wha... wha was 'at...? Getoff...”

“ _Yes, I think he will work quite well for us. Now, send for my tools – I wish to begin immediately...”_

“...who are you...?”

“ _Hush soldier...._ We are _Hydra_ , and you are ours now...”

~ ~

  


Bucky was falling, tumbling head first into the deepest void he'd ever known. He was dipping backwards in slow motion, looping his stomach and tying his insides into knots, spinning further and further and faster and faster until he hit something hard and solid beneath his back.

Blurry shapes crowded over him, poking and prodding his arms with needles and nasty little instruments that Bucky's clouded brain couldn't hope to comprehend. He was lying on something, a table, and could barely make out the people swimming in and out of focus up above. There was the faint shape of a face, blank with only two black holes, blinking evil eyes that wormed sickeningly under his skin in icy waves. There was a stout little figure forever at his side, skittering over him like he was a prize horse that needed constant tending to. A ghastly smudge of a figure with a red face, coming and going between what could have been days or even years.

Bucky tried to talk, to ask them who they were and what the hell they thought they were doing with him, but his tongue was heavy and his lips numb, and his voice died before it even left his chest.

Something glinted above him, like a star, his sluggish mind offered. The shiny object lowered itself towards his face, splitting into two, then suddenly there was a new man talking to him, in English this time, his beard white and his accent thick and German and too much for Bucky to handle in his hopeless, half-dreaming state.

“We have little time for formalities... This will hurt... you are not going to like it... but I have faith in what you can become...”

All he could concentrate on were those stars – a little pair of spectacles framing gaunt, dark eyes as they gazed down upon him. He tried to hold onto the words intended for him but then the world disappeared and suddenly a pain like no other ripped through his veins, as fierce and vicious as lightning striking his body.

  


~ ~ ~ ~

 

Bucky bustled around the little office, stashing piles of papers and scrolls into a satchel from the desk. He purposefully ignored the cage in his bid to grab the most presumptuous of the notes, moving with a hot, tense line of resentment to his body and his brow furrowed in concentration.

 

The presence of the man in the cage behind him was tickling over his shoulders, bristling the short hairs at the back of his neck, but Bucky refused to turn around. He focused all of his pent up feelings on the matter into roughly piling the files away as though he could take out his vehement grudge that way. He was rather careless with his task, but his haste to get the job done and catch up with Falsworth felt more important than tact: there were still POWs in the mix here, and Bucky's want to free them had only doubled since his venture into this stuffy little room.

Breathing measuredly in brooding puffs, when Bucky reached carelessly for another stack of papers dotted with English throughout he only managed to knock them over and send documents cascading onto the floor. He watched the white waterfall with a growl of frustration and momentarily gave up on his efforts all together, resorting to slumping heavily on his hands braced on the edge of the desk.

His legs were numb and trembling, fuelled by the sickening awareness of the German torturer still so close to him. It made his whole body itch like it was aflame all over again, thrusting him back to that godforsaken lab and the godforsaken table he'd spent an immeasurable amount of time strapped to, being tortured and drugged over and over again...

“Jesus...” Bucky huffed, scrunching up his eyes and shaking his head to try and regain control over himself. He focused on breathing until his chest didn't feel as constricted anymore and wished that he'd opted for going on ahead while Falsworth did the recon work after all.

Bucky curled his fingers hard against the wood, blinking through the haze impeding his judgement and finally allowed himself to peek over his shoulder at the body still lying on its back where he'd left it. He definitely recognised it as one of Hydra's scientists from that formidable facility back in Austria.

Bucky pressed his lips together in hatred, fuelled by the unjust treatment he'd received at the hands of this very man, among others. The feel of cold sweat beading on his skin was uncomfortable and he willed away the imprint of sharp puncture wounds dotting up and down his body, despising the harsh reminder of it all over again.

He had no desire to spend any more of his time in such close proximity to his torturer, and there was no use in letting himself break down while in the midst of an enemy-occupied fortress, he tried to remind himself, so dragged his thoughts back around to the prisoners of war of today. _That_ was the reason he was here, to save lives and prevent any more soldiers getting hurt, and he wasn't doing a very good job of it while cooped up in here.

Bucky swallowed down air until he could stand on his own two feet again without the threat of falling over, and this time when he turned his back he vowed not to pay the body another moment's thought. The man didn't deserve another ounce of his time.

He began collecting the fallen documents from the floor, the satchel bulging at the seams with what he'd managed to already grab, then a sharp jolt of gunfire rattled blearily through the doorway from down the corridor outside. Bucky's head snapped up as he listened to the sound – distant, the echoes bouncing along the brickwork, and at least several weapons blaring in the mix.

Falsworth...

Without hesitation, Bucky slung the padded satchel over his shoulder and pulled free his rifle, moving with a practised caution back over to the door. After an initial sweep of the hallway outside for any potential threats, he continued through the fortress toward the uproar of bullets and left the study, the cage, and his torturer's body behind without looking back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky has a vivid flashback to his time as a prisoner of war, from being locked in a cage with the other soldiers of the 107th to when he's strapped to Zola's lab table and experiencing torture through a drug-induced haze. There are no explicit mentions of what's happening to him and there are NO non-con/rape elements, but he's aware of the pain and people above him while he can do nothing to stop them.
> 
> Also, canon-typical action (maybe considered horror?), where unknown soldiers of the 107th are vaporized by the blue Hydra guns in front of Bucky, and he enacts his revenge on the Hydra soldiers in a similar way.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like last time, please check the end notes for a run through of this chapter if you feel like you need more clarification on anything mentioned here: warnings include drug-induced disorientation, violence, brief mention of gore, crippling guilt and minor character death.
> 
> Check out Samthebirdbae's artwork for this chapter! :D

 

Steve dropped silently from the window, instantly becoming bathed in a warm, honeyed light from the oil lamp burning on an old desk nearby. The orchestral music was still rolling fluidly around the chamber, a deep woman's voice now purring loud foreign words beautifully. Steve's boots were cushioned on a thick rug covering the cold stone floor, a drastic change of scene from scaling the outside of the tower in the blistering wind.

The room provided an obtuse illusion of comfort that only served to make him more unnerved; he was perched high above a dungeon full of innocent prisoners in their Warden's ridiculous, luxurious chambers, which made a fresh bout of hatred sting through his veins for this mystery Fertig. Who, as it happened, was nowhere to be seen.

Steve looked around, stepping quietly on the plush rug to avoid alerting anyone to his presence. There was really no need, as the place was fairly small and had no shadowed corners or many places for Fertig to hide. Even so, Steve carefully approached the shallow bed and ducked to check underneath the frame, but the small dark space was empty. Upon a second inspection of the room, he realised that there was also no visible door or way out.

Highly doubting the German would use Steve's impromptu method to reach his room every night, he guessed it meant there was a trap door somewhere. But when he pulled up the rug and braced himself for a surprise attack that never came, the floor revealed itself to be wholly intact. Aside from the bed, desk, a short little chest of drawers and a few bookcases, the room was only fitted with trivial decorations and the gramophone still turning smoothly. There were no doors, no other windows except the one Steve himself had entered through...

He straightened up, confused, and did a quick full search of the small room just in case before finally having to accept that he was alone. He felt a crawling sense of unease at the unexplained disappearance of the Warden but tried not to be either too disappointed or relieved at not actually coming face to face with the man yet. Finally letting his defences slip a little, Steve doubled back to start his ministrations on that desk near the window.

Getting down to business, he cast an attentive eye upon the sturdy surface: there was the bright oil lamp, a few ink pens, some blank sheets of paper, and sitting proudly right in the middle, a large shiny typewriter. He tried the drawers, finding only odd bits of charcoal and pencil nubs, a pack of cigarettes and a little cracked hand mirror. The left drawer was locked, however, and instantly drew Steve's attention.

He knelt down, swiftly becoming distracted with the process of picking the lock until the wood slid open under his prying touch.

“God and country...!” Steve breathed, his face scrunching up in horror and shock at a small pile of photographs stacked impeccably inside. He leafed through them, his stomach twisting painfully at the sights that met his eyes; men in cages clinging to the bars and almost crushing each other in the magnitude of bodies squeezed into the tight spaces; weakened soldiers strapped down to examination tables, some screaming, others bloody with their eyes slack and half-closed; wounded men in different states of duress, some missing limbs or others cut wide open from their hips to their sternum, splayed out for examination as though they were never human beings in the first place.

Steve didn't need to understand the annotations crammed in around the edges to recognise he was looking at severe cases of torture, and he had to drop the evidence and swipe his hand over his face to avoid throwing up all over the desk.

His insides squirmed, goosebumps rising all over his body and making his Captain America suit feel much too tight and constricting over his shivering skin. Steve closed his eyes tightly, utterly horrified at the lingering after-image of those photographs clinging to his mind's eye now he'd realized the truth.

The fortress wasn't just a place for keeping or working POWs – it was a place for Hydra to conduct their very own methods of human experimentation.

Suddenly, the importance of the mission seemed to double and caused Steve to feel even smaller in the huge building spanning out all around. After climbing all this way he was still yet to find Fertig, and for all he knew, Bucky had had no luck finding the soldiers either. With the Hydra tanks menacingly closing in on them and nothing to show for their efforts so far, Steve was struggling to keep a lid on the sense of urgency building up inside him.

If they failed in their rescue mission not only would good soldiers die, but nobody would even know about the awful experiments Hydra were conducting here. It was probably ongoing all over Europe already, and they would just continue capturing and wrecking the lives of whoever crossed their path unless Steve and his Howling Commandos did something about it, today.

He began rummaging through the rest of the drawer in hopes of finding something pointing him directly to Fertig or even Schmidt's location – anything that would help the allied forces take down the despicable organisation of Hydra before anyone else could suffer at their hands!

There was a single sheet of paper stuffed away at the back of the drawer and Steve snatched it up, acknowledging the hearty paragraph printed on its surface in clipped, precise handwriting. His adrenaline spiked at the possible lead.

Licking his lips in concentration, Steve leaned on the desk and started to read, struggling to digest and translate the German text into some form of coherent sense. The first thing that truly registered were mentions of Dr Erskine, his name creeping up throughout the otherwise mostly unintelligible letter. He read quickly, frowning deeper with every word he feebly managed to absorb.

Prisoner... Schmidt... Captain America... soldier... Erskine's death...

Steve grew increasingly more frustrated with every unknown word that slipped uselessly through his brain and provided no answers. He couldn't hope to make sense of what he was reading with as little German as he knew, and swiped up the page to tuck into his belt for safekeeping until it could be properly translated back at headquarters. Only, as he did so, the thumb of Steve's glove came away black. He blinked, then noticed the smudge of ink smeared from his touch, some words now blurry and stretched across the paper.

The ink was still drying.

Steve's pulse jumped as he looked up wildly just in time to see a portion of blank wall suddenly crack open. The moment his mind screamed ' _secret passage_ ', a little round object flew through the gap and rattled to a stop in the middle of the room. The secret door slammed shut again, and Steve had two seconds to realise that his only escape was a _long_ way down through the only window...

His breath stuttered in his chest in terror and Steve did the only thing he could – he threw himself behind his shield just in time to be blasted backwards into the wall with a mighty momentum. His shoulders clattered off of something that shattered under his weight; a wash of heat flickered all around and the crash of an explosion drowned out the German music and plunged deep into Steve's ears.

He gasped for breath for a few terrible seconds before coughing out lungfuls of black smoke, painfully unfurling his limbs from behind the circle of metal to find himself half buried beneath a blanket of splintered wood. The room was a mess – fire engulfed the old furniture, the glass window was shattered after being blasted out and what was left of the desk was charred and lying dangerously close to Steve's side. When he pushed himself to his feet, he realised he'd completely crushed the gramophone beneath his body with the force of the impact.

Steve coughed again, disorientated and aching, until he suddenly remembered the letter and looked down. Still clutched tightly in his fist, all that was left was a curling scrap of paper dissolving into nothing, the message now lost forever.

Furious rage burned through Steve as powerful as the explosion itself, and he glared daggers through the heavy smoke at the space where the secret passageway had revealed itself. Fuming, Steve spared no thought to hesitation and pelted right at the wall, raising his shield to take the impact as he crashed through the solid stone and burst out into a tiny hidden room with its very own trapdoor embedded into the ground. Steve ripped the thing from its hinges and was instantly hit square in the chest by an updraught of cold air.

He stared down through the hatch at the vast height of the Eastern Tower, the view dizzyingly far below him. Grinding his teeth together in determination, Steve spotted a man just at the bottom of a ladder that wound down against the outside of the tall base of the tower. The figure then turned and started hurrying away along an exposed platform of a battlement with a long coat billowing out behind him like a villainous cape. Steve watched with beady eyes until the figure disappeared from view from his position.

A lightening quick part of his mind informed him that he would fall behind if he took the long way down, and so, high on adrenaline and fury, Steve opted for the next best thing and jumped clean out the trap door.

He fell the impossible height that was too far for any regular human to survive, but then he was rolling to a stop on hard stone and picking himself up again to run blindly in the direction the man had gone.

Suddenly thrust back out into the night, Steve took a moment to adjust to the dark before he trained his eye on a figure purposefully fleeing from him. The jacket fluttered tellingly, and Steve grit his teeth and ran faster, steadily catching up despite the other man's incredible head start and his own smarting muscles.

Fertig, Steve believed it was, led him along the tapering barracks' roof and over uneven stone that threatened to trip him up with each rapid footfall. The man fled through a black doorway leading into a smaller tower up ahead, slamming over a metal grate door in his wake with a sharp screech of rusted metal. He clacked the lock shut in an attempt to separate himself from his pursuer, then melded into the shadows within. Steve didn't slow down at the sight of the obstacle – just barrelled into the metal with his shield and dented it right off its hinges at the same time another grate crunched closed over the exit. He forced his way through that door too, eyes immediately pinpointing Fertig still running away now only a short distance ahead.

He was fast, but Steve chased him over the battlements as they veered closer toward the main body of the building over the flat rooftops. They swept into the shadows of the towering structure sticking up in jagged towers up above, making it difficult for Steve to see the figure ahead until a sudden raucous flash of lightning illuminated the sky all around. It emanated a grumbling tremor so loud it reverberated into Steve's eardrums like the drone of a plane and made him gaze up in surprise in the direction of the sound.

With the next impending flash, a large blue ball of swirling fire shot away from the roof of the Keep looming over him, clearing away the clinging darkness in a lingering trail before it disappeared somewhere outside the fortress walls. It wasn't lightning at all...

Another blast followed suit, and Steve realised with a leap of pride that Dugan, Morita and Dernier must have gained access to the cannon and opened fire on the incoming Hydra reinforcements. He swiftly returned his attention to his own task with a new bout of enthusiasm.

Having lost the cover of darkness, Steve followed when Fertig darted down a thin gap beside the Keep that closed them in on both sides, out of range of the light from the cannon and made of almost solid blackness. It was like a blackout inside the narrow passage, he couldn't even see his own hand in front of his face, and only the scuffing of feet and ragged breathing ahead drew Steve further. His chest grumbled with exertion and rage the nearer he got to the man responsible for it all – those awful photographs back up in the Eastern Tower, the experiments conducted in this very building alone, capturing and imprisoning the POWs in the first place... His body could barely contain the anger burning inside, and he used it to fuel his momentum even further and power through the darkness and the incessant ground-rumbling blasts from the cannon on the roof.

A thin gap of brighter blue up ahead finally separated a long figure from the black of the passage; Fertig's scampering silhouette making a break for freedom from his pursuer. Steve watched the mad swing of the shoulders, the swish of hair with how fast the man was running, until he closed the distance between them enough to finally throw himself forward, crashing into the thinner frame and sending them both tumbling back out into the night air in a clash of limbs atop the rough stone beneath them.

Fertig yelled out in pain at the impact as something _snapped!_ audibly between them, giving Steve a small sense of satisfaction. When they rolled to a stop Steve slung his shield onto his back, pulled himself up to his feet then bent down to haul the Nazi up off the floor by the front of his jacket, ignoring the way the right arm swung limply from the shoulder.

“Who were you writing to?!” He snarled into the man's face, their noses inches apart, before the sight of the person in his grip momentarily startled his resolve right out of him.

Chin length, sandy coloured hair clung to a harsh face with two stark, black eyes boring out from a sickly pale complexion. But what surprised him further than the chill in that alien stare was the slight softness of the jaw, the smaller frame than he'd been expecting, and the thinly veiled feminine tint to the appearance. Though at first glance the Nazi had appeared to be strict and masculine, it registered in Steve's addled brain that Gert Fertig was, in fact, a woman, and only a few years older than him.

He creased his brow in puzzled confusion, unsure if he'd found the wrong person or his eyes were playing tricks on him, but it didn't take long for him to get a grip and find his voice. “Are you Gert Fertig?!” He shook the woman sternly.

She jostled with the momentum but otherwise didn't react, her right arm swinging limply as she ignored his question completely. Instead, she appeared to hold a sick sense of amusement at his predicament, long yellow teeth sneering at him from behind bloody lips. “...Captain America...” She drawled, heavily accented, as though finally greeting a worthy adversary.

Steve frowned deeper, his eyes flitting all over that face that leered at him like a nightmare. He ignored the prickles ghosting down his skin at the sight of it glowing in the steady stream of blue whooshing over their heads.

“ _Who were you writing to?!_ Was it Schmidt?! Where is he hiding?! What did that letter say?!” He shook her again, wrestling with the well-trained part of him that reminded him never to lift a hand to a lady. This lady also happened to be Hydra, and heavily involved in the running of this place, he reasoned, and didn't let up his iron grip.

Fertig just blinked at him with those awful, evil eyes. Steve began to sweat, whether it was under that glare or from the lack of response under his demands, he didn't know. Then, the yellow teeth clacked together, sucking in a breath, before the woman opened her mouth to speak.

“It was about you.” She said slowly, drawing it out as if just to make him squirm further. “You and your fabled soldiers running to the rescue, breaking into my prison and trying to steal away my prisoners...”

Steve didn't believe her, but listened warily while keeping his instincts on high alert for any sign of movement from the woman. Her right arm was still dangling awkwardly at her side but her face showed no sign of pain. The other hand was clutching Steve's forearm for purchase, the press of leather gloves tight but easy to ignore. She wasn't even trying to fight back, he noted.

Fertig continued, distracting him from his suspicious assessment of her unusual body language. “But there is no need: you won't find _him_ here.”

Steve's eyes flitted back up into that garish face, narrowing when he tightened his grip a little more on her collar. “Find who? Schmidt?!”

“He is dead now, and he will be of no more use to you than he was to us.” She continued, showing no sign she'd heard him speak.

Steve's heart suddenly clenched in cold fear. He knew Fertig wasn't talking about Johann Schmidt, and his mind instantly jumped to Bucky and his friends, all scattered around this godforsaken place. He fought to keep his panic from his expression. “Who's dead?! What are you talking about?!”

Fertig suddenly spat over Steve's shoulder in disgust, making him flinch slightly. “He thought he was so clever, he thought Hydra would not notice his lies...” She said bitterly, evil eyes glossing over slightly at the thought of this mystery person. Steve listened intently, trying to make sense of what he was hearing but failing to string the rambling into an order he could keep up with. “Hydra does not tolerate deception.”

“You're hiding somebody here.” Steve stated, his gaze still raking that androgynous face for any kind of answers. “This place is a cover, a distraction to keep one person hidden amongst a thousand...” His mind started to run away with possibilities, each more hopeless than the rest. He currently had no clues as to who this person could be.

Fertig looked at him again, a gut-twisting smile peeling up her lips as she examined his face and continued again as though he hadn't spoken at all. “But now that _you_ are here, I believe that we have been offered a second chance to impress Herr Schmidt...”

Something stung in Steve's side, sharp enough to make him instantly twist his body away and look down at the sight of a long syringe poking out of his midriff. His whole body ran cold with dread and anger at himself, and in the next frenzied moment he threw Fertig away from him in disgust and plucked out the needle, staring at the empty chamber with dawning realization in his eyes.

Steve looked up wildly to see Fertig standing in front of him wearing a self-satisfied sneer, holding a long curved knife and a metal collar attached to a chain in her hands. She shifted – her 'injured' arm not injured at all – challenging him to a duel with that clammy, dark stare. Steve burned under the cruel scrutiny, bile shivering up his throat and making his head swim.

“You can try to fight me, Captain... but all my prisoners yield, eventually.” The warden spoke with fire on her words, a promise Steve didn't want to consider. Images of those poor souls tortured under this mad woman's command flashed before his eyes, making his blood boil and his hands curl into furious fists.

He never was one to back away from a fight.

Steve pulled free his shield and took a step towards her, about to charge and wipe that look off Fertig's face when his legs unexpectedly gave out from under him and he had to catch his weight on the gruff rise of the wall to save himself from falling to the ground. He panted for breath, confused, and found that his lungs felt numb and heavy and a fuzzy ringing had started clogging up his ears. He shook his head, trying to blink away the blurriness edging in on his vision, and cast his thoughts back to that damned syringe and the unknown substance now worming its way through his system.

Steve huffed in realisation and shock that whatever she'd given him seemed to be working through his super soldier blood, even though he should be impervious to all foreign substances. He twisted his head to get the Warden in his sights again, pushing himself carefully back up to his feet.

“You always have to drug 'em first?” He managed, trying not to show how worried he really was at the narcotic tearing down his defences one by one. Steve's arm was beginning to strain under the unusually heavy weight of his shield.

“That is just the start of it. The true skill is finding weakness...” Fertig drawled darkly, then lunged forward in an imminent attack that Steve managed to dodge just before her blade could slice into his body, thirsting for blood. It sang by his ear, avoiding his face too narrowly for comfort, and it took the sound of metallic rattling nearby for him to realise he'd involuntarily dropped his shield in the process of evading her. His fingers trembled then went numb, quickening the pace of his panicked heartbeat.

Fertig stepped in front of the discarded shield with a feral gleam to her masculine face, effectively keeping his best weapon from him. “Asserting control...” She continued, swinging at him again so that Steve had to block the blow with the cross of his arms when it came inches away from his ribs. He tried to kick at her feet to collapse her stance, but ended up stumbling backwards with a heady rush that churned in his veins and sent him reeling, his gut swooping in fear of his own lack of control.

Steve just caught sight of the incoming flash of a blade slicing up towards him then exclaimed in surprise and pain at the gash that split over his chest. He staggered back, clutching at the wound and trying to situate himself into a better position to intercept the next attack. But Fertig was faster, and Steve's enhanced body felt heavier than it ever had done before – as though 90lbs Steve Rogers was trapped inside a huge, lumbering suit of armour and incapable of moving the limbs the way he wanted to.

Whatever it was she'd shot him with, it must have been some heavy duty stuff: his head grew groggier, his responses slower still, and the world through his eyes began to distort and spin in contrast to his movements, like he was standing on a boat in the midst of a swirling sea and failing to keep his balance.

Another slice, this time to the back of his leg, had Steve spinning too slowly to be able to pinpoint his opponent. A follow-up cut to his other leg made them buckle under his weight and Steve fell against the wall again, his head and shoulders extending over the ledge and showing him the long fall back to the ground. The view stretched and zoomed in front of him in a hallucinogenic dance, growing ever nearer and then impossibly far away again, a myriad of shadows sweeping to and fro beneath electric blue lights. He blinked profusely to try and uncross his vision and regain a sense of himself, gasping for breath that never came.

“My work is about learning how to break someone down,” Fertig's voice chilled him, only increasing the sense of nausea. “Until they have no choice but to obey.”

Something thick and cold closed around his throat before Steve managed to pull himself back onto the roof, and then he was tugged harshly like a dog on a leash to its master's heel. His neck was twisted back sharply under the bite of a metal collar, a cry of pain slipping out of his mouth, but Steve managed to grab hold of the stone parapets at either side of him with all the strength he had left, fingers turning white in protest. He pulled against the obvious intent to have him tumbling to the Warden's feet like a rag doll, aching body quivering under the strain of holding his position. His bulging muscles felt hollow and useless, more so than the scrap of meat he'd used to have on his wiry bones growing up, and he was unable to give or take an inch for fear of losing his grip all together.

Fertig pulled on the chain around his throat again with a powerful force, irritated by his resistance, but Steve absolutely refused to give way and planted himself firmly to the spot, clinging to the wall and clenching his jaw with the effort.

There was a moment of silence behind him, punctuated only by the ongoing blasts from the Hydra cannon, before what constituted as a laugh slithered out from Fertig's mouth.

“How did he manage it...?” He could feel her evil eyes looking over him like a fresh body for her experiments. If Steve could have let himself, he would have shivered at that thought. “Your Dr Erskine? The science is just... it is truly astounding. Hydra could only hope to one day recreate the success of his last experiment without him...”

“You – you could never be like him...” Steve panted, struggling to unearth his voice.

A sharp knee dug into his spine at the same time Fertig choked him further with another pull of the chain, forcing Steve to impossibly arch his back to avoid his neck snapping in two. “You think that is wise, to challenge me now?” The threat stung from her garish lips, close to Steve's ear. “You are nothing more than an experiment – you are just like the hundreds of men who have passed through this place, ending up in pieces once I am done with them!”

Steve's face fell under the reminder of those photographs and the mess made of those poor soldiers. Hatred skimmed over his skin and mingled with the aches, the blood and sweat dirtying him already, but he couldn't protest when Fertig dragged heavily on the collar, brutal and unforgiving on his windpipe. Steve tried to wriggle out of her grasp but only succeeded in ripping a whine of pain from his lips.

And then she gave the chain some slack, allowing Steve enough room to begin to drag himself along the wall, holding onto the parapets like a lifeline as he slowly tried to get away from the sinister prison warden. She followed him, prowling at the same crawling pace he was setting.

“And _you_ will be nothing more than pieces when I am done with you.” She vowed, intent and malice clear in her voice. Steve's blood ran cold, his mind wrestling with his frustratingly unresponsive body as he struggled to put any space between him and Fertig. His efforts weren't making any difference, but he kept moving defiantly onward despite the rise of humiliation on his back.

Suddenly he felt like he was shrinking, returning to that awkward, hopeless wreck he'd been when first forced to go out on stage during his USO tours; a kid, an actor, a fool in tights and a costume. If he had really been the 'Captain America' the others thought he was, that Peggy believed he was, then he would have been able to easily extradite himself from this situation and take down the bad guy in the blink of an eye! As it was, he was vulnerable and open to Fertig's attacks and helpless to resist another slice to his skin along the quivering muscle of his upper arm, teasing him to let go of the wall.

Steve's hands trembled with exertion, weak and sore but never giving up their iron grip as he just continued to pull himself along for all he was worth, not going to let himself yield under her, no matter what she did.

He scrunched his eyes closed, willing himself to ignore the pain and the frustration at himself and trying not to think about how easily Fertig had caught him or what experiments she would conduct on him. He tried not to think about his shield, laying lost and abandoned somewhere behind him for anyone to adopt as their own. He tried not to think about Bucky, or Gabe, or the others, having placed their lives in his unworthy hands only to be let down by their so-called Captain.

“Herr Schmidt will be pleased. He will want to oversee the procedures himself and have full access to the results.” Steve's eyes tore open of their own accord, his nerves alighting at the mention of Schmidt. Fertig leaned in close again, breathing bitterly into his ear. “We will have no need for Erskine... not when we have _you..._ ”

Gathering all of his willpower, Steve committed to jerking his head back despite the tight fit of the collar and managed to crack his helmet into Fertig's skull. She yowled in pain and surprise, and stealing a moment of victory, Steve immediately jumped on the opportunity to reach back and grab a handful of the Warden's jacket. His blood was pumping in biting pins and needles as the drug finally began to work itself out of his enhanced system, and Steve managed to muster the strength to instinctively flip the woman's body forward over his own in one swift, practised move.

What he hadn't accounted for was thrusting Fertig clean over the battlement wall

She screamed, a shrill screech of anger, and the wind was knocked out of Steve's chest when he was forcefully dragged forward between the parapets, his head and shoulders once more hanging over the side of the fortress. Steve caught his weight in his palms on the rough stone, bracing himself as he stared down at Fertig's form dangling above the long drop below, suspended solely by the end of the chain attached to his collar.

His stomach flipped in victory. Steve glared into Fertig's horrifying face, those black vortexes blazing up at him from amidst a pool of solid darkness far below her body. The hatred and disgust he felt for this woman overpowered him like a heat wave, making Steve seriously consider snapping the chain and sending her spiralling down to a long, painful death. Though it wouldn't be long or painful enough for the likes of her.

Then his true morals shone through the bleak haze, reminding Steve of why he was here in the first place and that this wasn't about vengeance, but justice. He still had a job to do.

“Tell me where Schmidt is hiding!” He demanded, squirming a little under her weight pulling on his neck. He'd battled through worse, but his body was still trying to reject the dregs of whatever poison she'd stuck him with and was feeling the strain. Steve held fast, growing more impatient when Fertig didn't answer him. “Tell me and I'll pull you back up!” He promised, purposely neglecting the part where she'd be detained by the SSR for a very long time afterwards.

That chin length sandy hair swirled around her androgynous face, ruffling in the wind and lighting up with every cannon bolt still flying through the air. The black eyes drilled deeply into Steve's, churning his gut to mulch with the distinct trove of awful dark secrets in their midst and the evil intent that ran the full length of the woman's being. She didn't look remorseful, or even a little bit scared. Instead, as she hung over the drop to her death, all she managed was a harsh twist of her lips.

“Hail Hydra.”

“No!” Steve protested, reaching out to catch the woman before she could evade him, but he was too late: Fertig let go of the chain and disappeared into the surrounding darkness, fading like a ghost with one last glimpse of a pallid, ghastly face.

Steve gaped after her, panting into the void after his best lead to the head of Hydra. He drooped his shoulders in defeat, swiping a hand over his face to wipe away the cold sweat and grime from his expedition, and slowly pulled himself back in from the ledge. Exhausted, he slumped down to the ground with his back to the wall and just allowed himself to sit there, the feeling returning to his limbs and his eyes glazing over as he relived the last few minutes now that he had a moment to think.

He'd ultimately failed in his portion of the mission, he slowly came to realise: he had no evidence, no information, no leads, and no Fertig to show for anything he'd accomplished during his time in the fortress. The letter he _had_ found was burned to a crisp, along with those photographs documenting human experimentation back up in the Eastern Tower. The only proof that he'd even come to blows with the Warden at all were the shallow cuts littering his body, already healing beneath the rips in his suit, and the heavy metal collar still hanging around his neck.

All in all Steve felt like a failure, and tried in vain to ignore the growing weight of dread on his conscience over letting the team down, just like he'd been afraid of.

Just like he'd done only yesterday...

  


~ ~ ~ ~

 _One day earlier_

_~ ~_

  


People were shouting, their cries masked by the roaring of flames and sparks of blue gunfire ricocheting around a huge jagged building. Great plumes of smoke were spiralling up into the air and explosions lit up the sky like bolts of red lightning; large hazy flashes beneath a thick canopy of brick dust and destruction.

Steve ushered man after man out of the burning building and into the night, the tension in his body only winding tighter with each figure that slipped out of a gaping hole in the wall: they weren't safe yet.

“This way, come on! Keep moving! That's it...!”

He caught the arm of a POW who half collapsed on his way past, the poor man barely able to keep his eyes open. He looked like he'd been through hell, and what only made it worse was that Steve knew he _had_. He chased away the worry on his features, pulling the soldier up into a more secure position.

“It's not much further, you just gotta keep moving!” He shouted over the chaos all around, looking the man square in the eye in hopes of providing enough motivation to keep him moving long enough to clear the danger zone. The soldier stumbled again, his face a mask of exhaustion and terror. Steve's heart clenched painfully. “What's your name, soldier?”

“Reeves, Sir.” The soldier slurred, finally steadying himself with Steve's help. His spindly fingers were too pale and too fragile against Captain America's broad forearm. His feet were bare and bleeding, and it was no surprise the man could barely walk. Steve quickly looked around before picking up a slightly twisted metal rod and tucking it securely in the man's palm as a makeshift walking stick. He squeezed the frail hand supportively.

“Reeves. You're gonna run for the river just down the slope there! Follow the others and don't stop, you hear?! You're gonna be okay!” Steve vowed, swallowing down the horror and anger building up inside him at the sickly state of Private Reeves and the evidence of the hardships he'd suffered. He steered the soldier toward the gap in the wall and the hoard of others all making their escape, a little afraid to let go in case Reeves toppled over.

However, the man kept his balance, albeit mostly on the walking stick, but he tilted his chin up ever so slightly as he did so. “Yes, Captain America, Sir! Thank you! I won't let you down!” He said bravely, speaking as though to a King.

Steve wasn't too sure how to react to that, so offered Reeves an appreciative little smile then clapped him on the arm to bid him farewell, watching just long enough to ensure he managed to limp outside before turning back to the madness still ensuing inside.

It was a large rectangular factory, with structured metal pillars lining the walls in strict, neat formation and a pool of bodies all battling it out in the middle; the building was falling apart, the far end still going up in frequent flames in the wake of the soldiers and more holes were opening up in the walls of the huge room with every passing minute. Soon the Hydra base would be reduced to ashes, but there were still too many POWs enacting their revenge on their captors instead of fleeing for their lives for Steve's liking.

“Bucky!” He called, drawing the attention of his friend a short distance away. Bucky turned from his rifle's scope, hurrying to Steve's side upon the beckoning swing of his arm. “Make sure they all get out, I'm going in to help fend off that tank!”

Upon his words, a ball of blue sailed over the writhing battle and collided messily with the wall, shattering more brick and chunks of metal pillars that rained back down in deadly spikes. Steve instantly drew his shield up over their heads, protecting them from harm until the coast was clear again.

Bucky's eyes were wide, but when he addressed Steve his courage was fully intact. “Be quick about it or we're all gonna go up in smoke!”

With that, Steve left Bucky to take over his post of aiding the POWs' escape and headed over toward where the body of the fight was still in full swing. A large, squat tank sat overseeing the action, intercepting where it could and blasting both ally and enemy alike into dust. Steve's expression was grim as he ran down an alcove made from two tented slabs of wall, leapt up onto another heap of rubble and bounded back onto another precarious ledge. Using the height to his advantage, he reached up and hoisted himself onto the second story balcony running around the outskirts of the room, slipping swiftly through a short waterfall of debris and rolling to a stop on the crumbling landing.

The heat up there was even greater than before, and Steve blinked through the smoke piling up above him. He coughed to clear his lungs, climbing to his feet and hurrying toward one of those black metal pillars between him and the rest of the fight. The tank was working quickly in a bid to follow the stream of POWs making their escape from the vicinity. Its bullets were now soaring across the battle as they reached for a further target, and Steve's head tracked the ball of fire as it cleared the broken remains of the exterior wall and ploughed heavily into a crowd of shadows all running to the river on the bank outside.

His brow wrinkled in distress when he realised the tank was trying to stop the men already almost free, cutting them down when they were so close to liberation and eviscerating them into thin air. A furious rage burned through Steve's body and he wasted no more time in taking a hold of the pillar and carefully testing its weight without dislodging it from its foundations.

He looked up: the roof was frail and breaking the metal beam free would be easy, he deduced. Even as he gently jostled it the thing swayed dangerously, though it didn't yet give in to gravity. Steve looked down and focused his attention on the tank, still crawling across the room and wading unknowingly right into his path...

The beam would be sure to put the beast out of action, leaving Steve to quickly take out the worst of the Nazis on foot then lead the rest of the POWs to safety. He tested the pillar again, suggesting its trajectory but not pushing strongly enough to unleash it yet. He knew they didn't have long before the entire building collapsed on itself, and so intended on timing this just right...

“Steve!” He barely heard it above the commotion, but Bucky's voice worked its way up to him. Steve looked down, then followed the direction of his friend's hand as he pointed toward the back of the room.

Steve's blood froze.

His budding plan, his anger, and his adrenaline all left him in an instant at the sight of two more Hydra tanks, crawling through the fire of the previous room like demons out of hell. Three swishes of fiery ammo gusted by him in slow motion, and Steve was powerless to stop them glide over the wall and land fatally in the midst of the group of fleeing POWs.

Silhouettes scampered away from the blaze like ants from a colony, tripping over their feet in their haste to escape the foul place. The monstrous tanks and Hydra officers sent more snarling blue bullets after them, crawling ever closer to the tide of innocent soldiers on the cusp of freedom and exterminating them handfuls at a time.

Suddenly the pillar in his grip seemed impossibly heavy, the pounding in his head too deep and too loud. Bucky was still shouting but his words were lost on Steve as he watched the horrific scene unfolding, enraptured and wholeheartedly aghast. The height of the fire growing behind him was immense, eating through the foundations of the building and burning down both brick and flesh as it tore through the place, unstoppable and murderous and only serving to raise the stakes ever further.

The truth of the situation hit him hard: the men fighting down below were undeniably outmatched, there were soldiers outside who were dying, and Steve's method of stopping the first tank would still leave them with two too many.

He hauled in a shuddering breath, unable to tear his gaze away from the mass of destruction for another aching moment. The longer he stood there and did nothing, the more men would perish. But the moment he acted would be the moment he condemned hundreds of soldiers to death, regardless of what he tried to do to save them.

Screams and cries of fury and pain ravaged his ears as even as he watched, people died on either side of him – the fire was closing in on the right, an imminent threat, and the distant river was the only relief out of sight to the left...

There was no more time.

Finally, Steve turned back to Bucky and shouted down to him as loudly as he could. “Take as many soldiers as you can and just go! NOW!”

The Sergeant hesitated, a maze of thoughts crossing his face before he just nodded and obeyed the given order. Steve turned back to the pillar standing tall before him and watched the flashes of blue and red illuminated on its rusting surface, waging the war he felt in his heart right before his eyes.

He knew had to give a chance to the group most likely to survive, no matter the sacrifice...

The rest of his world became a blur as he forced in another breath, unable to ignore the dying screams in the air even as he stepped forward to take a solid hold of the metal and finally pull it free of its flimsy confines.

Steve hated himself as the beam began to tilt. He hated that he put all of his efforts into aiming it up in the other direction from the Hydra tank. And it broke his heart when he deliberately threw the metal beam away from him and awaited the inevitable carnage sure to follow.

The large pillar turned over on itself in its descent, casting a long spike of a shadow over the pit filled with both ally and enemy battling it out below. It collided mightily with the support beam closest to it, splaying red hot bricks over those men with no hope of escape. The tanks were still firing, though a new commotion began in the battle as both Nazi and POW became aware of the metal pillars around the room collapsing onto each other like dominoes and steadily breaking the building apart at the seams.

The platform under Steve's feet cracked open, chasing him along its surface as he ran for the wall and the escaping POWs beyond. He pushed on through the sounds of destruction and the heat of the flames at his back, and when he reached the end of the platform he jumped as far as he could to propel himself clean over the broken exterior wall.

He hit the ground in a roll, soft darkness and cold grass catching him until he finally came to a stop on his front. Then a sharp explosion blew into the night sky and a tank blasted another bullet, a mean reminder of Hydra's forces still chasing them – a shooting star from the depths of the wreck that crashed noisily somewhere behind Steve and wiped out more soldiers from the earth.

The tanks clearly weren't going down without a fight, and he couldn't bear to look up at the POWs still trapped inside the collapsing building with their enemies. Their screams pierced deep behind Steve's scrunched eyelids before the deafening thunder when the ceiling finally collapsed erased them all from existence, sending terrible vibrations through the ground and up the numb, shaking fibre of his bones. More explosions lit up the sky in shades of blue, bigger and stronger than those before it and washing a sizzling heat over Steve's back. It took a long time before he mustered the courage to lift his head from his cold cushion of grass.

It was like watching a dream – the remaining lump of brick and mortar an orange blur, too bright and great to truly focus on. The glaring space where a building had once been was now a castle of fire and black smoke, and when Steve dragged himself up onto his knees, panting for breath, his whole body was too numb to feel the furnace spitting flakes of ash and sparks at him.

He stared in disbelief at the result of his work, breathing in the smoke and listening to the roaring of the flames, now the only sound in existence over sudden, empty silence.

~ ~

  


His feet crunched distantly on the slope, slowly taking him in an abstract line after the crowd of POWs that were now just tiny shapes far ahead of him. They were still running for all they were worth, desperate to live and escape this place for good. Steve choked on the thought of the men who'd died out here anyway, believing they were about to be free, and of those who'd watched the building come down on top of them and had the time to scream and know it was all over...

He breathed harshly with every step, too loud in his own ears, until something thin and solid underfoot broke him from his dazed trance. It was too dark to make out against the ground, but when Steve picked up the thin rod of twisted metal he recognised it immediately. His stomach turned acridly.

Steve's vision blurred instantly and he closed his fists so tightly around the walking stick that the metal twisted even more. He didn't want to think about how it had been so hastily abandoned in the grass, or the look of brave determination on the Private's face as he'd vowed not to let Captain America down. And he hadn't let him down, Steve insisted. Instead, Captain America had been the one unable to do his duty here tonight.

He couldn't even remember the Private's name.

He'd just condemned innocent men to death in an effort to spare other lives, but already Steve knew he'd done the wrong thing. Even as he tried to be strong and take all of his guilt and self-hatred and anger out on his death grip on the metal rod, he couldn't stop the first tear from slipping out of his defiantly squeezed shut eyelids.

He cried quietly into the night on the graves of five hundred men all dead because of him.

Steve didn't immediately notice the voice calling for him across the field, but when he looked up he recognised Bucky in the distance, coming back for him. Silhouetted against the burning remains of the Hydra base, Steve just waited for his friend to find him where he was, one hand still clutching the walking stick while the other shakily pulled off his helmet and wiped helplessly at his eyes.

“Steve!” Bucky called in relief, stopping in front of him when he caught sight of Steve's dejected body language and got a clear look at his face. Bucky's expression morphed into sympathetic regret for what had happened, and he didn't need to say anything else.

Steve did, though. “I had to – I couldn't let them -” He started, cutting himself off when his voice died in his chest. Bucky's fingers closed around his wrist, then his friend attempted to pull him away down the field toward the river. To the only survivors.

“It's okay, come on -”

“They were going to -”

“Steve, we need to go -”

“ _Buck_...!” Steve protested, even though he had no words. He refused to move despite his friend's attempts, unsure if he even could any more. The soldiers watched each other, their gazes locked and their sorrow at the mission clear between them. Steve wiped his nose with the back of his hand and Bucky's eyes tracked the metal rod clasped in it still.

He gently reached out to pry the object from Steve's possession as though it were simply a ruined trinket from the rubble, but Steve jerked his hand away instinctively. It earned him a worried search from Bucky's eyes, before he was forced to admit it was already too late and that the walking stick really did mean nothing. The next time Bucky reached, Steve allowed the rod to slip free from his fingers, breathing slightly easier as though the metal itself had just been removed from his lungs.

“They're waiting for us.” Bucky spoke softly, almost masking the _thump_ of the walking stick dropping back onto the grass by their feet. Steve watched it go mournfully, barely aware of his friend gently tugging the helmet from his other hand until he slid it back onto Steve's head for him. They met eyes again, silently sharing the awful weight of this turn of events. When Bucky next spoke, he had a hard resolve to his voice. “It wasn't your fault.”

Steve had to look away, swallowing a few times before he could muster up the words. “Yes it was.”

Then he yielded under the warm hand laid on his back and let Bucky slowly walk him away from the burning building... and from the bodies trapped within.

  


~ ~ ~ ~

  


Steve sat against the battlement wall, succumbing to the painful memory replaying on the inside of his eyelids and just breathing in full lungfuls of air. He listened to the fizzling blast of the Hydra cannon still flying over his head, counting the rhythm and using it to help drag himself back to reality.

Another blast trickled over him, the same sound that had wiped out so many men on his previous mission. Steve didn't open his eyes, but found solace in the knowledge it was his team at the controls and that this time they had something capable of putting Hydra's roving tanks out of action.

That metal collar was digging insistently into his skin and Steve yanked it off in frustration, bursting the hinge easily now he was no longer infected with Fertig's drug and tossing it away from him with a loud _clang!_ He rubbed at the raw skin of his throat, still feeling tight in regret as he contemplated his options; there was nothing more he could do about Fertig, or the lost intel on Hydra she'd taken with her to her grave. His pursuit of the Warden had been for nothing, and he had nobody to blame for that but himself.

The presence of the lives he'd lost, of that poor crippled Private and the brave determination he'd shown shivered down Steve's back and he had to swipe a hand over his face to chase the lingering tremors away. Their deaths were on him also, and nothing was going to bring those soldiers back to life – but there were still POWs in the fortress today who needed rescuing, and it was going to take the efforts of the whole team to get them out alive.

Their safety was all that really mattered here.

Finally, Steve opened his eyes to the view of the shadowed Keep towering up above him. The blue balls of fire shooting from the roof trailed dazzlingly through the air, leaving ghostly imprints behind that streaked along the night sky. Steve watched, enraptured by the sight and the sense of righteous determination building up inside him like a crescendo, and then his eyes were drawn to the discarded disc of metal lying close to his feet: upside down and balanced on the perfect curve of vibranium from where he'd dropped it.

Steve breathed steadily, images of the previous failed mission, of those photographs in Fertig's office and of Peggy Carter's trusting face as she'd looked at him flicking through his thoughts all at once. Making up his mind, he stretched out and closed his fingers around the outside ring, dragging the disc carefully toward himself as it sang with a quiet hum of promise.

Getting purposefully to his feet and standing up tall, Steve strapped his shield to his arm and gazed up at the roof of the Keep with serious, definite intent.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve finds photographs showing tortured soldiers who have suffered gory experimentation, and he's drugged against his will which affects his control over his body. He re-lives the instance where 500 POWs died on the last mission, which is fairly brief and doesn't go into a lot of detail as it happens, but Steve is deeply troubled by his part to play and feels terrible about it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're out the other side – things will get lighter from here on out, with less gore and torture and more action typical of the Captain America movies :^) No major warnings for this chapter, and I hope you've been enjoying the story so far!
> 
> Awesome Bucky and Falsworth artwork by Samthebirdbae! x)

 

A body tumbled limply down a set of stairs, the solid _crack_ of its black helmet bouncing around the echoing walls. A short burst of gunfire, and another body followed. Bucky hurried after, stepping quickly over the tangle of limbs with his gun still at the ready and frowned against the blaring of bullets coming from just around the next upcoming corner.

He slowed, muffling his footsteps, and pressed his back to the damp, clammy stone of the wall. By the sounds of it there were three guns at play – two firing away in tandem and short, sporadic bullets fighting back every few seconds. That would be Falsworth, most likely pinned down by Nazis with much more firepower than his pistol. Bucky hefted his stolen Hydra machine gun in his grip then carefully peeked around the corner to check what he was up against.

He was met by the sight of a long chamber, bigger than any of the identical corridors he'd been confined to so far where the roof curved in a narrow dome with thick pillars running down the walls like a ribcage over the room. Two inky black figures were hiding behind one on each wall, their backs to Bucky and weapons aimed toward one of the furthest pillars where they'd chipped flint from the stone in their haste to shoot the man crouching there. Falsworth pressed himself further into the recess, trying to evade their persistent bullets.

Bucky sized up the scene before slipping out from cover, deathly silent as he approached the Nazi on the right and aimed the barrel of his gun on the other. The one closest was already bleeding, leaking red slowly onto the ground from a quivering leg and leaning most of his weight against the pillar. They hadn't noticed him, and when Falsworth attempted to get another shot in on his attackers, the Hydra agents went wild with gunfire yet again.

Bucky used the distraction to shoot one bullet straight into the crevice at the base of the helmet of the Nazi on the left, then kicked his heel into the other's injured leg. The man screamed in agony then fell silent when the handle of Bucky's gun was slammed down over his armoured head. After the echo stopped reverberating around the chamber and inside Bucky's skull, he collected the Nazi's ammo and straightened up, noting that the coast was now clear.

“I thought I said 'be careful', idiot!” He called out.

There was a moment of hesitation, and then a hearty chuckle drifted along the room towards him. Bucky began walking over to his friend, shaking his head in exasperated disbelief.

“Now where's the fun in that...?” Falsworth stepped out from his hiding spot, a flush on his cheeks but a grin on his lips. The two men closed the distance between them, both reloading their weapons and trying to hide their relief at the sight of the other.

Suddenly, Falsworth stumbled, cursing under his breath and clutching at his side.

“Woah! You hit?” Bucky helped steady him, pursing his lips at the sheen of red decorating the Brit's hand and dripping from his ribs.

“It's just a scratch – the bastards barely hit me. I, on the other hand, managed to take out about six of them on the way here.” Falsworth held his head up proud and defiant. Bucky's lips quirked into a smirk despite himself.

“I know, I saw 'em. And don't exaggerate, it was only five.” He helped the man stand then backed off, looking around with all humour gone. “What d'you reckon? Think there's a whole squad waitin' for us down there...?”

The men peered into a deep, dark passage wound into the wall and leading ever further into the bowls of the fortress. Aside from the way they'd come in, it was the only way out.

“Sure makes you wish Cap was with us, doesn't it?” Falsworth said quietly, his voice floating away into the void of darkness awaiting them.

Bucky immediately thought of Steve, of how upset he'd been over what had happened during their previous mission, and how difficult it must have been for him to set back out again while wrestling with the weight of his conscience. As long as his head wasn't in the game, Bucky was worried that the man's sheer force of will wouldn't be enough for him this time – running around this place somewhere above them, all alone with his ghosts at his back. Or with Fertig. He wasn't sure which idea was worse.

Staring down into their only way forward, Bucky was suddenly reminded of his own traumas and the bulging satchel still sitting on his hip, fit to bursting with his torturer's scribbles. He didn't know what the notes even said, or if he was mentioned somewhere amongst them. Right now he didn't care what the man had thought of him – just another expendable soldier, suitable only for Hydra's means and with no will of his own. He _did_ care about the current POWs awaiting rescue, who were most definitely somewhere down there in that black hole, behind bars and a mass of hostile enemies. He knew the odds, and he knew the stakes of the mission, but he couldn't possibly leave this place now without giving all he had to save those men. It was either rescue them, or die trying.

Taking a breath, Bucky forced all of his doubts and fears aside, facing Falsworth with a feigned smile of confidence. “S'matter? You don't think I can get us through there?” He gave a twitch of an eyebrow.

The uncertainty melted from his friend's face, instilling a bout of real confidence in Bucky in the process. “I only meant I wish that Cap was here to look after you, y'know, when you can't keep up with me.” He corrected himself, tipping his hat cockily. They laughed together, allowing the guise to smooth over their nerves at what they were undoubtedly about to walk into.

“Well, we'll see about that.” Bucky challenged, blowing out one last breath before leading the way into the hollow of shadow and trusting his feet to follow another set of stairs that took him straight down.

His breath was loud in his ears, the click of his gun a comfort, and the smell of old dank stone and stale sweat drifted up towards them with a gust of air, suggesting a larger room beyond. Bucky's slick grip slipped a little before he corrected himself, pushing on through the thumping of his heartbeat and the mounting expectation of a full-fledged execution the moment he touched down in the next room.

There was a sliver of orange light at the bottom of the staircase and he could hear the bubbling of quiet movement, slight shuffling of bodies, muffled sniffs and coughs... He could sense the prickling presence of people up ahead, a large crowd, and clenched his jaw in anticipation of a shoot out.

When the room finally crawled into view from the narrow staircase, there was a long moment of utmost silence before a sudden roar of deafening noise followed and a mass of applause burst out around the two soldiers.

Behind him, Bucky was hardly aware of the soft curse Falsworth let out, too engrossed in trying to scan the entirety of the cages set into the walls and the hundreds of POWs locked inside; they were piled in together and looked thin and unkempt, but they were here and most importantly, alive. And they were all cheering the two allied soldiers who had just arrived to rescue them.

Bucky stared in wonder as he waded slowly into the cavern, awestruck, trying to get a lid on the sudden surge of emotion welling up inside him at the sight. “There's gotta be about 1,000 of 'em. They're all here.” He breathed, eyes glistening at the desperate, eager and hopeful faces all looking his way.

The after-image of his own torture and captors' fuzzy figures leaning over him finally dissipated, and Bucky even forgot about the weight of paper slung over his shoulder and just basked in the relief that they weren't too late.

They were going to save everybody this time.

“That's Bucky Barnes! And Montgomery Falsworth!” One voice caught his attention from a cage to his left, and Bucky turned to look into the eyes of one of the prisoners he was going to get out of here. He crossed to the man's side.

“How ya doin'?” He greeted the soldier, looking over the thick bars of the cage and the same stubborn lock he'd encountered on the cage back in the study. He didn't let it phase him – making a racket was no longer a threat now the prisoners were loud enough to cover it. “Ready to get outta here?”

“Hell yes, Sergeant.” The soldier replied, his hand trembling where it clutched at the bars and a definite tone of determination in his voice. Bucky smiled at him, seeing the young man who had persevered behind the overgrown beard and the sallow skin. He wrestled with the knot of sympathy and immense pride in his stomach for the soldier before him.

Finally the applause died down enough for Falsworth's voice to be heard. “Alright everyone, we're headed for the roof! We have an aircraft on call that will swing by to pick us all up, but it's quite a hike. Myself and Sergeant Barnes here will be your guides for the evening.” He gestured to himself and Bucky to a weak round of amused reactions from the prisoners.

“Is Captain America here to get us?” Someone asked, a voice lost in the crowd. This time the amused and some _mocking_ reactions were louder.

Bucky began to walk over to Falsworth's side, raising his voice to be heard. “Yeah he is, he's upstairs takin' out the bad guys so we can get you all out safe.” The soldiers settled again, their silence reflective of their attentiveness. The hopeful looks on their faces were enough to confirm that they were more than alright with those conditions. “Once you're all out of these cages we're goin' up in groups to avoid confusion and people getting lost. We _will_ get you out of here. You're all goin' home.” He promised, meaning every word of it.

There was another chorus of cheers and Bucky couldn't stop himself gazing around at the immense prison and the men raring and eager to leave it. Falsworth elbowed him gently and Bucky simply huffed bemusedly back, thriving somewhere between adrenaline, relief and disbelief at where they were and the incredible task they were about to undertake.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Steve ran through the belly of the fortress, his shield on his arm and his eyes focused straight ahead. His only company on his venture was the steady slew of blue bullets washing by the narrow windows from high above him –

Until the rumblings of a commotion reached his ears from somewhere up ahead.

Steve's body involuntarily slowed from his powerful pace, the breath leaving his lungs in one huge, aching exhale of amazement; he stared down the corridor at the spiral staircase visible at the far end, and the thick stream of men there all making their way up in the direction of the roof. Prisoners of war, tired and mistreated, yet determined and helping each other just to take another step toward liberation. Some had their hands around each other's backs, and over the stampede of their footfalls Steve could hear the men exchanging words of encouragement. He walked slowly closer and subconsciously clasped a hand to his chest, overcome with both relief and awe at the inspiring sight. Steve didn't know if he wanted to laugh or cry.

“Great work, Buck.” He whispered to himself, watching the soldiers ascend the staircase like a proud father witnessing his child's first steps. His heart was fluttering madly under his palm and all Steve could think was that _this_ was what it was all about: that everything they'd been through tonight had been worth it, just to get here.

He shook himself out of his state of wonder and approached the staircase, sidling in amongst the POWs and heading up with them. It was like jumping into a waterfall, being buffered about and bumping into bodies on all sides, and Steve tried to be careful not to jostle the men too much. He followed the crowd, pausing occasionally to help them manage the stairs, until Steve slowly became aware of a murmured chorus of “Captain America” following him up. He turned around to see two dozen faces staring at him like he'd stepped right off of a picture house screen, and when he remembered what he was wearing and the red, white and blue shield strapped to his person, he realised that he practically _had_.

But the burbling burn of self-consciousness evaporated when the soldiers began to pick up their pace as a unit, rejuvenated, some clapping him on the arm in thanks and others even reaching out to shake his hand. It took him entirely too long to come to understand that his presence had given them _hope._

“Ready for action, Captain America!”

“Thanks for coming after us.”

“It's good to see ya, Cap.”

“My daughter loves you, she is not gonna _believe_ I met you in person...!” One soldier almost ripped Steve's arm off at the socket with his unexpectedly vigorous handshake. He hadn't felt so fawned over since his stint as the USO tour boy, and could only laugh nervously under the attention.

“I'm pretty sure she's gonna care a lot more about her father coming home safe, soldier. One thing at a time.” He patted the man on the back who was then ushered away through the never ending crowd toward the roof. Steve watched after him, a little stunned by the exchange and the doe-eyed expression he'd seen on the soldier's face, before he looked around himself to assess how many more were still to come and where he would be of the most use.

Before he could decide, the entire staircase – the very walls – trembled with a mighty _CRASH!_ that shook their surroundings with the strength of an earthquake. The soldiers all clamoured in shock and ducked for cover behind their arms, protecting themselves from a shower of stone that never came. Steve had brought his shield up over his head and peered cautiously around the rim, checking the walls for damage only to see that they were still standing and looked surprisingly intact after such a heavy impact.

A rumble of weary voices emanated from the group, confused and frightened by what had just happened. Steve had a suspicion he knew what was going on...

“It's alright, just keep moving.” He reassured them, trying to keep the urgency from his voice while attempting to usher the soldiers up the stairs more quickly.

“What was that?” Peppered throughout the crowd.

Steve looked around at the uncertain faces, the bruises and cuts littering their tired features, and found it too difficult to lie to these poor, abused men. “It's Hydra reinforcements coming in from the North side. But don't worry about it – we've got men holding them off long enough for everyone to get out of here.” He said kindly, trying to instil a sense of calm over the group.

Those faces flickered with horror, doubt, and finally resolve. The men climbed visibly faster without another word and Steve kept egging them on as he ascended with them, patting bony ribcages and knobbly shoulders for support. The Keep shook again as another _CRASH!_ slammed into the walls but they fortunately held fast.

A sudden gust of fresh air ruffled the men's hair as they passed a little balcony jutting out the side of the staircase. Steve slowed, peeking out at the view beyond the shelter of the sturdy foundations harbouring him and the POWs.

He swallowed silently, his eyes captured by the sight of a dozen black shapes crawling over the earth beyond the fortress's outer walls and small lumps of smoking debris in a disorderly trail in their wake. With another blast from the cannon above him, one of the little black trucks exploded and span wildly through the air, only adding to the pile of those already destroyed on their way to the battle. But there were still more approaching, and Steve could pick out the four significantly larger vehicles in their midst. As he watched, one of the tanks fired in his direction, a pinprick of the brightest blue growing steadily larger as it closed in on its target. Steve followed the trail with wide eyes until it collided with the wall high above him, dislodging huge shards of stone and sending another vibration through the Keep.

Steve ducked back into the crowd, breathing steadily to keep himself focused, then began kneading his way through the POWs in an urgent effort to reach the roof.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

He burst out into cool night air, the peppering of stars so near and dazzlingly bright above his head. The space up here was already filling up with bodies and the crowd was dense enough that Steve had to lean up on tip toe to see over their heads. The wind was whipping eagerly, instilling a slight sense of vertigo from being so high up with only the flat surface of the roof of the Keep to keep everyone from tumbling off the side. Steve swiftly pressed on through the group of impatient soldiers.

His eyes roved purposefully over their faces, searching for just one.

“Bucky?” He called, skimming past man after man without finding a trace of his friend. The sky suddenly lit up with a spark of lightning and a deafening crackle of electricity spiked into Steve's ears. He whipped around, met by the sight of three familiar silhouettes crowding around a huge black cannon on the edge of the roof as they swivelled the weapon heavily to get it into the next desired position.

The thump of his heartbeat against his hollow chest eased slightly, and Steve responded encouragingly when Dugan, Morita and Dernier all saluted him from their positions. Their faces looked alive with adrenaline, and then they were giving all of their energy into firing another snarling bullet down into the army of Nazis opposing them. Steve could see they were all more than capable of keeping up their ministrations for a while longer, and so continued on his search of the POWs.

When he turned around someone almost crashed right into him and Steve just managed to steady them both with a tight grip on the man's forearms. He let out a breath of relief when he recognised the soldier before him. “Falsworth!”

“Cap! Not bad huh...?” The Brit gestured around at the freed POWs, a smug quirk to his thin moustache. “Though you look like you've been through quite the ordeal tonight...” He added with an eye cast over the bloody rips in Steve's combat suit and the skin beneath already perfectly healed.

“You don't wanna know...” Steve sighed bitterly, feeling significantly better about everything now that he was back with his friends. Still, he gave his immediate surroundings another scour, only to come up empty again. “Where's Bucky?”

“Downstairs. We're bringing them up in groups to avoid complications.”

“No time – ” As if to prove his point, the Keep rattled once again. This time Steve thought the reverberation lingered alarmingly longer than the ones before. “We need to get the rest of the POWs up here, _now_.”

Falsworth nodded in agreement when Steve prowled near the edge of the roof, stopping beside the monstrous cannon and assessing the damage and the fire power of their enemies. His brow wrinkled in dissatisfaction and he pulled his little radio from his belt, holding it up to his lips. “Gabe! We have the POWs, radio Stark to send in the aircraft!”

The line buzzed for a moment. “Copy.”

“And you'd better get over here – we don't want you missing your ride!”

“Copy that, Cap.”

Steve turned back to Falsworth, noting that Morita and Dernier had joined in their little conversation also. “We're here for ya, Cap! What d'you need?” Morita offered eagerly, crowding in a little closer at his side. Steve clapped his friend on the shoulder in fond acknowledgement, trying to show his gratitude in the quick gesture alone.

“Three of us are gonna go find Bucky and help bring up the rest of the soldiers.” Looking around at all the squirming POWs, Steve had to swallow back the guilt at the memory of that little metal walking stick from the last mission... He wasn't going to let that happen again, and instilled himself with a strong sense of determination. “We're getting all of them this time – I'm not leaving this place until every single man left alive is on that aircraft!” He vowed with the utmost sincerity.

Out of nowhere, a shaking hand closed around his arm, tugging to get his attention. Steve looked around into the gaunt face of one of the POWs, a middle aged man and with deep dark eyes that shone up at him in earnest. He looked of Italian descent, with a distinctly warm face beneath his overgrown beard and greying hair.

“Captain America – my son was taken away last night by that witch! If you really mean what you just said, you'll get him back!” The man was frail but full of passion, his devotion to his son clear as day on his features. Steve's heart flipped coldly as his brows rose in concern, thinking back to Fertig and those god-awful photographs of her experimentations...

“Do you know where she took him?” He said instead, straining to hear the answer over the sounds all around them. But the soldier simply pointed out over the edge of the rooftop to where the view blended into nothing but darkness. Steve didn't understand, and looked back at the soldier in question.

“There's an old manor house at the edge of the grounds...” The soldier's voice shook but he held his chin up high, putting on a brave face despite it all.

Steve turned his head to look out at the place where this house was hidden, peering into the dark that faintly began to unfurl to reveal the slightest shape of a building in the distance. It sat amidst a thatch of trees, past the large stretch of overgrown gardens and beyond the vicious, unrelenting Hydra tanks.

The Keep suffered another agonizing blow to its walls, trembling precariously before ultimately settling again. The POWs began buzzing in restless fear, their trepidation gathering in a heavy cloud amidst them. Steve huffed in conflicted dread, looking over the crowd as his mind chewed restlessly over all those lost soldiers and the mourning families of the men who'd died under his care the last time he'd been gambling with 1,000 lives. The ruckus of the rooftop bled away until all he could hear was the worried father's voice and his own blood rushing in his ears.

“He's only sixteen, he shouldn't even be here! He lied about his age so he could follow me to war, and I can't abandon him in this place!”

Steve gazed back at that distant manor house, thinking of the little kid who'd gone to extreme lengths to keep his father safe at war. He knew without a doubt, had he himself been underage, Steve would have done the exact same thing. It wasn't all that different from what he _had_ done to get himself into the war, in the end. He frowned to himself in determination, eyes fixed on the building situated across the other side of a war zone.

“I know he's just one soldier to you, but if there's a chance he's still alive – ”

“Then I'll take it.” Steve finished, turning back to meet the POW's shocked, sparkling eyes. “Don't worry, I'll find your son.” He promised, giving a soft, reassuring squeeze to the man's shoulder.

The soldier looked stunned for a moment before he shook Steve's hand firmly, his eyes glistening more even as his handshake remained sturdy. “Thank you, Captain! God bless you!”

Steve nodded, bidding the soldier farewell while trying to come to terms with the impossible journey he was about to undertake. Crossing a war zone filled with enemy soldiers armed to the teeth was going to be quite a feat, especially since he had no men to spare to be his backup. Steve took in a long breath, resigning himself to his fate and straightening his posture as he did so: he meant what he'd said, and this time he wasn't leaving until every last allied soldier was safely on their way home.

Before he could make another sound, Falsworth appeared in his face. “You really are one crazy son of a gun aren't you? You'll never make it!” He scorned, adjusting his flat little cap on his brow in a way that betrayed his discomfort about the situation.

“I can try.” Steve retorted, looking back out at the manor house again. It was a fair distance away, not to mention the obstacles in his path. “Morita, you go with Falsworth and help Bucky with the rest of the soldiers. Looks like you'll have to do this without me.” He ordered, gearing up to begin his latest endeavour.

Another cannon bolt fired their way, but with a lightning quick response from Dugan it was blasted out of the air by the force of the cannon's stronger energy. Steve watched with a budding sense of inspiration.

“Cap, it's impossible! You'll be walking into a bloodbath!” Morita argued, uncomfortable with the odds.

Steve ignored his protests, pacing over to Dugan and raising his voice further to be heard over the prickling roar of the cannon. “Dugan, I need you to clear me a path through the tanks! If they're kept busy I can take on the trucks.” He adjusted his utility belt, double checking his supply of bullets and the weight of a little hand gun tucked in there. It wasn't much for fire power, but Steve wasn't deterred.

Then his eye was drawn to Dernier holding out a bigger Hydra gun for him to take, a silent accordance to the plan even though his face showed he didn't much like it either. Steve carefully accepted the weapon, strapping it over his shoulder where it sat beside the curve of his shield. The gesture meant more to him than he'd expected, and when he looked around at his men Steve couldn't help but feel sorry for abandoning them to do this. Still, that kid needed his help, and he was _not_ going to leave him behind.

There was a stretching moment of reluctant understanding between the group until Dugan finally broke it. “You'd best get going before the Sarge shows up then, or he'll never let you leave!” He bellowed, ultimately relenting to Steve's side. “Now you three get down there and help those POWs – I can hold the fort here!” He added, nodding at Falsworth, Dernier and Morita.

“I just need you to hold those tanks off long enough for me to get through! Plus, I can draw their fire away from the Keep!” He stated before turning and heading purposefully back across the rooftop with Dernier, Morita and Falsworth at his side.

They were watching him with wide eyes as the four men walked quickly, weaving steadily through the crowd of POWs. Behind them, Dugan fired another lightning bolt that cast swooping shadows over the scene just as they disappeared back into the staircase leading down through the Keep.

“What about the aircraft?” Morita asked, hurrying to keep up with his Captain moving swiftly down the steps. They passed the last trickling stream of POWs just as long cracks splintered the walls upon another thunderous blow from the tanks. It didn't look like the Keep would be able to hold up after another hit like that.

Steve let out a breath, finding his nerves to be almost entirely eclipsed by his renewed sense of duty. “If I'm not back when you get everyone up here, go without me.” He ordered. He was on a mission, and none of the men argued with him this time. Instead, they all reached over to pat some part of him supportively.

“Good luck, Cap!”

“Godspeed!”

“Bon voyage, Capitaine!”

“Dernier, as soon as that aircraft gets everyone to a safe distance, you blow those charges! I don't want one tower left standing!” Steve waited for his French friend's excited grin in reply.

And with one last determined look over his men, he sped up and left them all behind, taking a firm grip of his shield and trying to decide on the quickest way to the battlefield awaiting him below.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features an extensive action scene that – I'm not going to sugar coat – was a bitch for me to write! :P I hope it will be clear enough to follow the flow of the fight as it happens, but writing a coherent, choreographed action scene is surprisingly difficult, something I found out when I set out to write a story that matched the style and tone of an action blockbuster film! 
> 
> So, lots of action ahead and I hope it's both understandable and enjoyable x)
> 
> Also, you have to love this beautiful art by my friend FieryEclipse, which I posted again with the relevant chapter! x) She's up for doing paid art commissions, so if anyone is interested please contact her on tumblr: [FieryEclipseOnTumblr ](https://thefieryeclipse.tumblr.com/)
> 
> And you have to love Samthebirdbae's awesome piece for this chapter too! Go give these artists all the adoring compliments they deserve :D [samthebirdbaeOnTumblr ](https://samthebirdbae.tumblr.com/post/164464853958/steve-jesus-christ-was-all-he-could-say-in)

 

A huge procession of prisoners of war made their way along narrow corridors, filling the entire space with bodies and hushed whispers. Bucky went first, clutching his rifle with white fingers and praying that there wasn't an ambush poised behind every corner; he was just one man leading two hundred, yet he never hesitated in his sweep of their surroundings, his instincts on the highest alert.

When a distant sound travelled down the corridor to meet him, Bucky instantly aimed upon the corner up ahead with lightning reflexes, his finger trained on the trigger and his feet rooted to the ground. The mass of POWs at his back froze also, their presence suddenly narrowed down to just Bucky and whoever was approaching.

Multiple footfalls. The telling click of weapons. A small group, moving quickly. Bucky's heart was in his throat as he focused his breathing and mentally calculated the best strategy for taking some of them out before he was shot in retaliation. He counted down the seconds, waiting in dread and anticipation with the allied soldiers' lives resting on his next move. Bucky's trigger finger held steady but it was a conscious effort to keep the rest of him from jumping when three soldiers suddenly ran out into his scope.

“Woah! Easy there, Sarge...!” Morita exclaimed with his hands up in the air in surrender, Dernier and Falsworth doing the same at his side. Bucky huffed in surprise and lowered his weapon, willing the feeling back into his numb legs as he made himself walk toward his friends.

“You didn't think I'd run off and left you, did you?” Falsworth cracked a grin, greeting him with a playful shove to his shoulder.

“I never know what to think when it comes to you coupla mooks!” Bucky retorted, elbowing the Brit in the side. His entire body was zinging with painful relief, and he counted his lucky stars that he was no longer the sole guardian of these POWs against whatever they might have come up against in the depths of Hydra territory.

The three Commandos looked over the large crowd of POWs spanning the full length of the corridor away from them, then shared a knowing look. Bucky just watched, the shock of seeing his friends down here slowly bleeding into confusion. Before he got the chance to ask, Falsworth and Dernier broke off from the group and started off through the crowd of soldiers.

“Get these good men up to the roof, we'll be right behind you with the rest!” Falsworth called back over his shoulder as the POWs squeezed together to allow he and Dernier a path through the middle.

“This way, Sarge – hurry!” Morita recaptured his attention, beckoning for Bucky to follow him.

He didn't question his friend or the sense of urgency in his voice, just signalled for the soldiers to keep close at his tail as they all began to follow Morita at a run. They wound down more of those identical corridors and Bucky eyed his torturer's cage through the open door as they swiftly passed that little study, fitting the bulging satchel full of Hydra secrets more safely over his shoulder.

The POWs followed obediently and Bucky trusted Morita's judgement until they broke off from the trajectory that would lead them back the way he and Falsworth had initially come in.

“Where are we going?” He called, trying not to sound contradictory in front of two hundred tortured soldiers. Still, Bucky had a little frown on his brow when they turned into one of the inky black doors only to collide with a staircase that led them straight up. The sound of marching feet through the corridor became muffled until the smaller space became cramped with ragged breathing and soldiers hissing as they bumped into one another.

“Taking a shortcut.” Morita replied.

“Aren't you supposed to be disabling the cannon?”

“Uh... there was a change of plan...”

When Bucky opened his mouth to reply he found himself emerging from the staircase as suddenly as he'd entered it. The sky was clear and unobstructed above them, and as he looked around to gain his bearings Bucky realised they were in a courtyard. Not the one at the Western gate, but one significantly smaller with a good view of the towering structure of the Keep up ahead.

They stopped running, waiting to give the soldiers a chance to catch up and fan out in the open space. The earth was cold and hard under his boots, and for a moment Bucky had never been so pleased to see dirt in his life – it was a nice change from solid stone walls anyway. He could also see the Eastern Tower, but swallowed nervously at the sight of flames engulfing the tower roof and licking up the walls from a tiny window. It was a large blaze, filling the top of the structure and looked like a burning torch held up against the sky.

Bucky was distracted from his apprehensive thoughts of what could have happened up there when a roar like the screech of a dragon flashed blue above them, pressing hotly into his eardrums. He gaped up at the roof of the Keep and the energy bolt sailing down over the exterior wall of the courtyard. A moment later a loud explosion and flash of orange flames followed.

He turned back to Morita, raising an eyebrow. “A change of plan, huh?” His friend just offered him a sly grin. “What're you guys doin' down here? Got tired of blasting Nazi's into ash?”

The flash of adrenaline faded from Morita's eyes, replaced by that same look of urgency he'd had before. “Cap sent us to help! We need to get everyone to the roof before -”

His voice was drowned out by another deafening _CRASH!_ , only this time the bullet came from ground level and smashed into the side of the Keep with a small blue explosion. The men all watched in uncomfortable silence while the stone wall cracked open, spilling boulders down to earth and exposing parts of what looked like a spiral staircase inside.

“You saw Steve?” He turned back to Morita, choosing to ignore what they'd just witnessed for now. “Did he capture Fertig?” Bucky attempted to hide both the hope and concern in his tone, wondering just how his best friend had got on with his side of the mission. Evidentially, the burning Eastern Tower was just the left-overs of his trip, but the relief was short-lived when Morita looked away, avoiding Bucky's eyes. A cold trail of fire rushed through his core. “What? What happened?” He managed, his throat suddenly tight with fear.

Morita looked up, reading the terrible thoughts spinning madly through Bucky's mind. “He's fine! He's fine, he's just...”

As the man paused to find the words, another _CRASH!_ reverberated throughout the small courtyard, this one so close that Morita, Bucky and the large cluster of POWs already at the top of the stairs all dived behind their arms for protection. Stones rained down and clattered off the ground, but the sound wasn't enough to disguise the distinguished _THWANG!_ of metal that Bucky would recognise anywhere...

He slowly straightened up, watching in stunned silence as Captain America burst through the wall from somewhere inside the fortress, free-fell down two stories and rolled to his feet atop the walls encircling the courtyard around them in all his patriotic glory.

Steve didn't see them as he ran with ferocious purpose across the roof, his super soldier body carrying him beyond the human capability of speed in a direct path toward the outer wall between the fortress and whoever was shooting at them from beyond.

The POWs began to point and twitter amongst themselves, some cheering 'Captain America' on in his venture, but Bucky simply stared at the blur of his best friend getting himself into trouble yet again.

Morita didn't have to say another word.

 

Steve charged toward the edge of the battlement, pushing all of his adrenaline into running as fast as possible. He lost sight of the dark space where the manor house was nestled on the outskirts of the grounds, and pulled his shield up over his head as a few late boulders toppled down towards him from a fresh hole in the side of the Keep. He knew there wasn't going to be much time before the entire structure collapsed, unless he and Dugan could do something about those tanks.

Right on cue, a fresh bolt from the cannon fired down from the roof and blasted through the exterior wall blocking the end of Steve's path. He pushed farther, muscles easily coping with the burn and sucked in an anticipating breath when the wall crumbled away to reveal dark earth stretching away beyond the fortress and a small army of Hydra vehicles closing in. They were so close, and now there was nothing in his way...

Without pausing to reflect on his actions, Steve leapt deliberately over the wall and immediately fell into cool shadow and rolled to a cushioned stop on the grass below. Wild plants tickled his neck like cold fingers grabbing at his body, reminiscent of the slices to his skin from Fertig's blade. He shivered at the memory to chase it away before noticing a large carved, ornamental sun dial on a short stone pillar nearby. Steve poised himself on his hands and toes, and with the approaching reinforcements almost upon him, took his chance to hide himself behind its stout cover.

There, he took a moment to think, listening to the approaching growl of engines ushered into the night. Nobody seemed to have seen him, and so Steve peeked around the pillar to properly assess his new opponents.

There were more than he'd originally anticipated, and it all looked considerably more ominous from down here.

Six trucks, each carrying a squad of armed soldiers in the back. Four tanks, much larger and more powerful than the vehicles next to them, equally spaced out amongst the group to offer the most protection. Grounded troops, tailing the rest with guns in their hands. Steve ducked back behind the pillar, breathing steadily and trying not to second guess himself.

He was doing this for the kid soldier, for the worried father, for all the soldiers who'd been held prisoner in this place and all of those who'd already passed away in captivity. He was doing this for the men he'd allowed to die during yesterday's mission, and for those families back home who would never have their loved ones back after the war.

He was doing it for himself, and also because it was the right thing to do.

The heat of another cannon blast at his back washed over the environment, lighting up his surroundings and illuminating what looked like a once-proud garden spanning away from the base of the fortress at Steve's side. The hedges looked fuzzy and overgrown and almost eclipsed the neat garden walls enclosing the designated space, but it was ripe for providing the perfect amount of cover for him to get closer to the tanks undetected.

Steve took another second just to ready himself. He deliberately ignored all the possible ways that he could get himself killed and dived for the gardens, aiming for the shelter of lush shadows winding between the hedges.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

The exterior wall was still slowly crumbling, bits of rubble skirting randomly down the wide gap from the top to the base, leading out into the mountainside beyond the fortress walls. The POWs were talking quickly with each other, equal parts excited and scared by seeing Captain America jump into a death trap so close to their location. The whole group had spilled out into the courtyard now and Morita had to raise his voice to be heard above the commotion.

“Come on, men! Head right on through there and up the staircase to the very top! Don't slow down!” He pointed toward an open grate door on the other side of the courtyard that the crowd quickly began to stream towards, thinning into a somewhat orderly line to be able to fit through the narrow doorway.

The men were a jumble of fear and hope at the near prospect of escape, and Morita was ushering them along at Bucky's side. But Bucky only stood, torn, looking between the two hundred desperate men and the empty smoking space where Steve had just vanished.

“Right, so are you going up ahead or am I?” Morita asked him, succeeding in tearing Bucky's gaze away from the broken wall.

He looked into his friend's face that was watching him back bravely and without the slightest hint of uncertainty now. He, too, seemed to have found some sort of solace in Steve's display of heroic sacrifice, but Bucky just felt like his gut was wringing itself into knots.

The men stampeded past them, oblivious in their efforts to finally be free from this dreadful place. Bucky chewed on his tongue, wrestling with his responsibility to the mission and his initial instincts, before freeing that heavy satchel from his shoulder and dumping it squarely into Morita's arms.

“Get those men to the roof, and give this bag to Agent Carter!” He shouted over another huge crackle of charged electricity flying overhead.

His friend stared at him like he was crazy, clutching onto the satchel as if he hadn't even noticed its existence. “And where are _you_ off to, then?!”

Bucky just took a trusty hold of his gun and began to back away from his fellow soldier. “I gotta go.” He stated simply, offering a half shrug of his shoulders as his only explanation before turning and running in the direction he'd watched Steve disappear.

He purposefully ignored Morita's shout of protest, feeling faster and stronger without the added weight of that satchel at his hip, and honed in his senses until the hammering of his heartbeat was no longer painful. He didn't know just what he would be facing out there, but judging by the amount of fire power reigning down from the cannon on the roof it wasn't to be taken lightly. He tightened his grip on his weapon and didn't slow down.

The courtyard was small enough that he covered the distance in seconds, jumping cleanly through the fresh hole in the wall and merging seamlessly into the dusty curl of smoke left behind.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

The formation of trucks trundled menacingly up the path toward the fortress, flanked by four powerful tanks that took turns firing up at the cannon high on the roof. Nazis spoke to each other, short and clipped, their guns at the ready and their eyes on the prize. It was a big group, spanning a fair distance from start to finish.

A shadow darted unseen from the hedges beside the vehicles, running directly for the driver's door of the nearest truck. Putting all of his weight into his shoulder behind his shield, Steve threw himself at the window and was rewarded with the tinkling of shattered glass as he clung to the door, hitching a ride on the tiny step behind the tire. Upon inspection, it appeared the driver himself had been knocked unconscious upon the impact, and Steve reached his arm through the broken window to commandeer control of the steering wheel.

The ground was uneven and the truck kept threatening to throw him off with every jostle, but Steve held fast as he aimed for the back of the huge hulking Hydra tank driving in front of him, relying on the unconscious driver's weight to keep pressure on the gas. Once the vehicle was heading right on target, he jumped from the truck and steadied himself back against the camouflage of foliage, wincing slightly when the vehicle he'd just vacated collided with the tank and practically folded itself in half with the momentum – the screech of bent metal only lasted a moment before the entire truck exploded in a mixture of orange and blue, flashing so bright Steve had to look away to avoid the worst of it staining across his vision.

When the light finally subsided, he checked the damage only to see the tank still intact and utterly unaffected, but the truck itself had been reduced to practically a lump of melted metal. One down, five to go.

The next truck was coming up, the exhaust puttering deeply as it swerved a little to avoid the crash site but otherwise paid no heed to its fallen comrade. It seemed they were all so focused on reaching the fortress walls they weren't interested in offering help to those in need: they just passed on without a second glance.

Good, Steve thought, and pressed himself further into the hedges to bide his time until he was level to the back of the next vehicle. Seizing his chance at the opportune moment, he rushed out from cover and dove through the fabric covering the back of the truck, disappearing into darkness and the inevitable Nazis inside.

The vehicle continued on its trek, oblivious to the sudden shaft of ice blue light splitting through the fabric roof. Another one shot through into the air beside it, then the truck was suddenly full of thin blue beams stabbing through it like a pincushion as a scuffled commotion broke out inside. After a few tense seconds and several muffled cries, one final blue light pierced sharply through the front window from behind the driver's seat before the truck began to slowly taper off of its strict course. When it rolled to suspicious stop, Steve hopped back out from the fabric covering with a large foreign gun in his hands still smoking and sizzling gently.

He looked down at the weapon, taking in the sight of it and wondering whether he was examining it in awe or revulsion. It was unnaturally heavy compared to his familiar shield, and the metal was running hot from the all-too-powerful energy source burning away in its core. It felt cruel and disobedient, as though it knew Steve wasn't its true master and was just awaiting the opportunity to turn on him.

He was torn from his murky thoughts upon a fresh grumble of an engine nearby and looked up directly into the mask of the next oncoming driver. This time Steve hadn't been so lucky as to go undetected.

The driver jerked, as though conflicted between calling for help or slamming his foot on the gas to run over Captain America. Eventually he tried both, but Steve quickly aimed up his shiny new weapon and fired it into the hood of the vehicle in retaliation before he could become fully compromised. He hadn't meant to flip the truck over on itself where it exploded orange and blue once again, covering him in another wave of heat and this time a healthy coating of dust and ash also. Steve dropped the Hydra gun to cover his head with his arms, diving instinctively out of the blast radius and rolling to a messy stop somewhere with soft earth beneath his limbs.

His ears were ringing painfully and distant sounds were fading in and out of his apprehension in waves. When he looked up to make sense of himself, Steve was met by two other Hydra trucks that came screeching to a halt before him. He blinked at the Nazi figures dropping down into the mud and advancing upon him, each with a tiny blue dot identifying them to his vision.

Steve struggled to his feet, realising he'd inadvertently landed himself right in the middle of the oncoming brigade and was standing in deep grooves left in the wake of one of the tanks. He looked around at the approaching hostiles in alarm: ten separate guns, each emitting a shrill, building beep and every one of them trained on him. Meanwhile, Steve's matching gun lay somewhere behind him, lost in the darkness and worthless to him now.

He knew he wouldn't be able to withstand them all with only his little round shield for defence. Even so, Steve braced himself for impact and held his ground, trying to keep them all in his sights while considering that, for once, he should have maybe listened to reason...

Then the two trucks and the accompanying Nazis evaporated into an enormous ball of bright light, so sudden and unexpected that Steve just stared at the after image printed in the night. He looked over the multitude of discarded weapons now lying on the ground, lighting up sporadic patches of mud like little blue torches.

Now he couldn't even hear ringing – just a thick silence pressing in on his ears and smothering him with a disorientating sense of slow motion. It was somewhat similar to the way that unknown drug Fertig had given him had made him slow and sluggish, until Steve's intelligence caught up with him the next moment and he turned to gaze up at the distant point of the Keep... where Dugan currently sat with a huge cannon at his disposal and a keen eye for sweeping in and getting his friends out of trouble. Steve sagged in relief and gratitude, pleased to note that he wasn't as alone out here as he'd thought.

Five trucks down – only one more to go, he assessed with renewed energy, turning back to continue on his campaign through the thinning number of Hydra reinforcements.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Dugan watched the tiny image of the Cap far below him, taking note of the man disappearing into the fray once again and the faintest ring of metal illuminated on his arm as he passed the smouldering wrecks of his own creation.

Behind his perch on the cannon, Dugan was aware of the swarm of POWs beginning to thicken as more men trickled out onto the roof, but he ignored them in favour of training his perception back onto the tanks. He released another lightning bolt, sending it crashing through the sky with a growl of victory when he managed to blast an incoming attack clean out of the sky before it could reach its mark on the Keep.

The cannon grumbled under his touch, hissing and spitting out charged sparks of raw power. Dugan had never before encountered anything like it in his life, but now he thought he could gladly spend the rest of the war with this girl in his arsenal. She was truly beautiful, and when Dugan's eyes raked the Hydra forces below him, the cannon practically purred in excitement as he aimed up his next mark.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Steve's boots sank a little in the mud as he ran along the outskirts of the brigade, heading for the space of darkness over the hill where they'd come in from. Where that manor house should be nestled in the grounds, waiting for him. He couldn't stop thinking about the sixteen year old kid out here in the despicable conditions of war, and just exactly what sort of tortures Fertig could have conducted on him. He needed no further convincing she was evil, but the picture in his head of a young boy as one of her subjects was just the last straw – that kid was somebody's baby, and that somebody was counting on Captain America to save the day.

This time, Steve was adamant that he would succeed in his duty. No matter what sort of obstacles he had to fight his way through to do so.

He dodged an oncoming tank, pausing in shadow to stare up at the sheer magnitude of it as it smoothly passed him by. The long turret of the tank was directed toward the Keep and when Steve followed its sight-line he could see distant POWs making their way up the tower structure through a large hole in the wall.

He looked back at the tank, his body rocking on the spot as he considered whether to keep moving or take his chances with the monster vehicle before it could destroy the POWs' only escape route. Thankfully before he could decide on doing anything stupid, a flash from Dugan quickly distracted the tank, drawing its fire in order to deflect the cannon's powerful energy.

Feeling a little more at ease, Steve turned away to continue along the path only to immediately stop short at the chilling sound of grinding gears over the rumbling engines all around: another tank was crawling along the earth on the other side of this one, and Steve couldn't ignore the obvious intent as the long, hardy gun swivelled round until it was aiming right into the star in the middle of his chest.

“Ah, great...” He huffed in frustration. Then Steve bolted out of the line of fire just in time to avoid a huge flaming bullet burning him to a crisp. When he rolled and caught himself on the balls of his feet, he looked back the sizzling hole cut through the thick mass of hedges where he'd just been standing and shook himself, a little numb with the realisation that he could have just been vaporized.

With no time to dwell on the thought, Steve got moving when the click of gears followed him and the barrel of the tank span menacingly to keep him in its sights.

_Trik trik trik trik..._

The sound chased him like a taunt, his feet slipped in the mud, it was difficult to navigate the complex rise and dips of the tire-tracks in the earth and Steve slipped and slid his way after the tank that had just passed him. He couldn't out manoeuvre the Hydra turret like this, he knew, and threw himself bodily behind the huge conveyor track of the wheels in an attempt to get _anything_ between him and his relentless pursuer.

He landed just in time to avoid a long spike of crackling heat colliding with the tank, slicing the air above his head and simultaneously severing the wheels from the body. Steve hid beneath his shield, listening to the roaring sounds of chaos as the huge hulk of machinery looming over him rocked mightily, having just been disabled by the other tank in the line of fire. It sent heavy tremors through the ground that reverberated in the shield covering his head.

Steve stayed there until he sensed the armoured body sag defeatedly on its frame, then he sucked in a breath and twisted his body to roll to his feet. He quickly cleared some space between himself and the unstable magnitude of the damaged tank, should it blow up in his face, and when Steve finally slowed down he stared at the remains of the machine and the considerable destruction caused by Hydra's own weapons with a sense of satisfaction; it looked like the wheels had been put entirely out of action and the tank itself was utterly confused over its own sudden state of immobility. The turret was still functional, Steve noted unfavourably, but he at least seemed to be off the radar of the Nazis' currently scratching their heads inside the cockpit.

The moment he peeked out to check on that tank he'd been avoiding, a sharp spike of blue pierced and obliterated it, completely out of left field – the sudden explosion shocked Steve as much as it had the distracted Hydra agents manning the tank, who had finally let their guard down while searching for their new target and unwittingly allowed Dugan the chance to strike with the cannon.

Steve stepped back, protecting himself from the fallout behind his hardy disc of metal and blinked through the slow realisation that they were now one Hydra tank down. He smiled to himself in triumph. “Thank you, Dugan!” He said, then squared himself up against the disabled machine squatting beside him.

Suddenly it didn't seem like such a monster, and Steve climbed easily onto the wheels and up the hull with a strong sense of confidence. He burst open the metal hatch at the very top and jumped down into the inside of the machine, disappearing from sight until two bodies were flung yelping from the cockpit a moment later.

Steve sat at the controls, contemplating using his new toy to shoot down the two remaining tanks now that he had the chance and the means. The thrum of power running under his body felt like a promise, that he was invincible while encased in this metal monster with fire at his command... it wasn't difficult to tell the thing was Hydra-made, and that the Nazi soldiers riding them all believed they were superior men. They all believed they could easily defeat any enemy, and sitting in the driver's seat, Steve found himself wondering what if...

His first instinctive thought was of Johann Schmidt, with his distorted skull-like appearance and thousands of evil minions at his disposal. Then he thought of Hitler manipulating countries and sending the entire planet into disarray for his own selfish means. He was a little surprised to find his mind landed on Gert Fertig, the hatred fresh in his veins for the woman who'd run an entire fortress of torture and human experimentation. He was repulsed by her disgusting ways and her over-arching authority in this place, the way she'd been so unapologetic as to keep visual proof of her schemes in her desk drawer for easy reach.

Steve was _glad_ that she was dead, because he wondered that if she hadn't been, would he have hunted her down and given her the death she truly deserved while at the helm of a tank withholding so much power? Steve's brow furrowed in deep regret for the men already maimed or killed because of one woman's sick idea of fun, at the thought of the kid trapped in the manor house across the grounds, and then he chased the swelling emotions away before they could distract him further from the task at hand.

He was here for the kid, to help provide the POWs time to make their escape. He needed to take out the Hydra fire support and continue on his mission to that manor house. Fertig was gone, and he wasn't going to dignify her by giving her another moment's thought.

Steve was just reaching for the controls of the tank to go to town on his opponents when he noticed the next blast from Dugan's cannon heading right towards him, a distinct circle of light growing steadily larger with every passing millisecond.

Steve exclaimed in cold panic, jolted up from the driver's seat and scrambled back out of the hatch in a mad rush. His footfalls clunked wildly off the metal exterior of the tank as he took a running leap off the hull just in time to avoid being annihilated by one of his own soldiers in another scorching explosion! He landed on his feet and steadied himself, wheeling around to stare wide-eyed at the smoking, remaining shell of the tank.

“ _Damn_ you, Dugan!” Steve cursed, watching the most profitable plan he'd had now become engulfed in crackling flames with his body numb and tingling from his narrow escape.

He sighed in disappointment, hands on his waist, then turned his gaze to the last two tanks growing further away from him with their low growling engines. There would be no sense in following them now, he judged, not when it would take him in the opposite direction to where the path should now be open leading him on to the manor house.

Steve was about to turn and follow said path when he suddenly found himself under fire, small regular bullets whizzing by his body, so close they left a stinging trail of heat in their wake. He ducked, bringing his shield up to take the impact and strained to see who was attacking him now: in his encounter with the tanks he'd forgotten about the grounded troops taking up the rear – twenty men all advancing on foot and spanning out in an effort to surround him.

Steve could have cursed himself for overlooking the backup and grit his teeth against the heavy fire he was up against. Bullets thundered against the other side of his shield, straining his arms with the effort of pushing back against the crushing force threatening to overbalance him. His heart rate, already fierce against his ribcage, suddenly spiked and sent ice through his gut when his ears picked up a dreadful sound coming from behind him over the racket of gunfire on metal...

_Trik trik trik trik trik..._

He jerked his head to see over his own shoulder, eyes widening at the sight of both remaining tanks turning their attention onto Captain America, pinned down by enemy fire and currently open to attack from the other side.

Steve gasped in alarm, unable to turn around and defend himself or otherwise escape to evade the impossible tanks without making himself vulnerable to the twenty men already raining down bullets upon him. As if to make matters worse, he could see headlights glaring his way, the vehicle accelerating purposefully and only bringing more hostiles to the party.

The last truck.

Steve scrunched his eyes closed, grunting in exertion when he was forced down on one knee under the pressure on his shield. He forced all of his strength into not losing another inch of his space, choosing to ignore the imminent threat of the tanks at his back in favour of the current threat affecting him _now._ He tried not to think about what would happen to him in the next couple of seconds.

There was a sudden lash of lightning behind him, followed by another crash of an explosion so bright it seared through Steve's eyelids from the reflection off his shield. He bowed his head, trying to chase away the sting and make himself aware of what was happening around him: Dugan had come to the rescue again, taking advantage of the tanks' distraction to destroy another one. That meant there was only one tank left, and one truck and two dozen armed Nazis for Steve to worry about.

It wasn't so bad...

The last tank shrank back, returning its turret upon Dugan to defend itself from his attacks. Steve tried to regain his footing but found the attacks from the troops almost doubled, or his body was suffering under the force pushing him down. The last truck was hurtling up behind him, the exhaust screeching and headlights blaring, and the most Steve could do about it was turn his head as far as he could manage and at least try to meet his adversary face on.

He felt trapped – like a fish in a net that closed in tighter with every thrash for freedom. All he could see were headlights, all he could hear were bullets hammering off of his shield, and his body seized up in anticipation when the truck was almost upon him -

Something huge and dark appeared in his sights out of nowhere, speeding with a vengeance to rival the Hydra truck and colliding heavily with the side of the vehicle so hard they both squealed off course.

Steve gaped, still pinned behind his shield but with his attention rapt upon his sudden rescuer as the last truck blared its headlights and another identical vehicle continued to ram right into its side, forcing it away from Steve as they both whipped by him and out of sight. Left clueless and stunned with his blood tingling in relief at the near miss, Steve flinched when a short explosion puffed up into the air over the rim of his shield.

He could still hear tyres screeching over the gunfire, and suddenly German curses and yowls of shock started up from over by the grounded Hydra agents. The force of bullets against him eased immediately and allowed Steve enough give to shift in order to take a look at what was happening over there: that last truck that had been coming for him was now a smouldering wreck, and the Nazi troops were scattering before the new mysterious vehicle that was coming to rest atop a smattering of dropped guns and Hydra bodies squished into the ground.

Steve stared in confusion, a frown forming between his brows: that was one of the trucks he'd taken out, with the fabric covering hanging loose and tattered at the back from multiple gun shots... It took the driver's door to open and a man to drop down from inside for the pieces to fit together in his mind.

“ _Bucky?_ What are you doing out here -?!”

Bucky didn't seem to hear him as he wielded one of those energy guns with ease, stalking after the fleeing Nazis and shooting blots of blue into the night like it was the 4th of July! His face was set in concentration as he hunted down his targets, and so Steve, accepting that his friend was now in the field with him, took the hint and turned after the other agents scrambling to regroup out of the line of fire.

Steve threw his shield in a wide arc, counting four separate _thwangs!_ of vibranium before he caught the disc and sent it right back out again, jumping into the heart of the action.

They could only see by the flickering of flames eating through the wrecks littering the fortress grounds, capturing flitting silhouettes as they attempted to escape or sneak up on them. The continuous roar of Bucky's acquired weapon served to keep Steve aware of his position and, together, they worked to take out the last of Fertig's reinforcements.

 

They were a mash up of shadows and sparks, darting across the open earth to get the job done – Bucky's hijacked truck served as their anchor point and they defended both sides of it, both men fierce and a force to be reckoned with.

The fortress seemed so far away, with just this fight existing in the entirety of the swamp of night covering the rest of the mountains. The cannon's gunshots were still streaming in concentrated energy down upon the last tank standing, but Bucky couldn't offer enough time to pay attention when his focus was sorely needed here. He dodged an incoming bullet and fired back a bolt of hot energy, watching the imprint of a man evaporate into blue sparks.

They were down to half the original threat – about ten men left against Captain America and Bucky Barnes...

He liked those odds.

The alien gun felt snug and belonging in his grasp, like he'd finally found something that could manifest his intention toward these Hydra Nazis – his internal rage and defensiveness barked out of the weapon with no reservations, and Bucky could barely believe it had been months since he'd held one of these weapons.

It felt like it had been his all along, and his hands had just been waiting for the moment it was finally returned to his grip.

Bucky heard Steve cry out in effort and instinctively span around, aiming the weapon with impeccable accuracy and blasting two Nazis off the form of his best friend. Steve blinked in shock and looked around, the two men locking eyes for the first time since splitting up back at the start of the night. They couldn't afford long pauses, and simply nodded at each other in acknowledgement before carrying on with the fight.

Three Nazis down. Five. Six. Nine.

Bucky looked around, his eyes searching through the dark pockets of shadow with the short hairs at the back of his neck rising uneasily. He was panting for breath, a scowl low on his face in concentration, and his internal counter assured him there was _one more hostile left!_

Only, Bucky couldn't see anyone. He broke into a jog, rounding the static truck and joining Steve on the other side. His friend seemed to believe the fight was finished, and was looking wistfully down the long stretch of mud back toward the fortress. He was standing tall with little flashes of light brushing over the whole patriotic image of him in constant waves, and even with half his face covered behind that helmet, Bucky knew there was a stubborn crease between his friend's brows.

Bucky's frown was deeper.

“Dugan should be able to keep that last one busy, right...?” Steve asked, not taking his eyes away from the exchange of fire between the final tank and the cannon in the distance.

Bucky just glanced around them again, still not satisfied enough to let his guard down, and came to a stop at Steve's side. It seemed to break him out of his trance and Steve rounded on him, a disapproving edge to his voice as he spoke into the unnerving silence around them now.

“What are you doin' out here, Buck? You're meant to be helping the POWs -”

Bucky turned to face him head on, his eyes flashing warningly. “You gotta be kiddin' me...?! You seriously thought I wouldn't come after you on this suicide mission?!” He stared his best friend down, watching a look of surprise then understanding wash over his features. Steve's shoulders sagged slightly but his posture didn't falter.

“It's not what you think -”

Bucky wasn't in the mood to hear it.

“It's not? So you didn't just waltz into a _war zone_ and put your life on the line to punish yourself for what happened yesterday?” Bucky shoved Steve's shoulder, a little rougher than was strictly necessary. Steve just watched him, allowing Bucky to get it out of his system. “That was _not_ your fault Steve, _Jesus!_ People died, I know it hurts, but you can't _act_ like this when we're tryna save other people!”

Bucky began to pace back and forth, scrubbing a hand over his chin and trying to shake this nervous anger that had him on edge.

He could still feel one more presence out there, just out of sight. It made him shiver.

Steve caught him by the shoulders, stopping him in his tracks. They looked at each other, Steve's reassuring hands soothing some of the discomfort from Bucky's mind.

“I came out here because a father asked me to bring back his son. He's just a kid and he's trapped out there,” Bucky followed Steve's gesture into the darkness swallowing up the hill outside the light of their surrounding fires. “And I have to find him.”

Bucky snorted, pulling free from his friend's grip and resuming his pacing. “Glad to see you're back to your old self, huh? You _always_ gotta throw yourself under a bus to prove yourself!”

“This isn't that, Buck, this is a kid that needs my help -”

“Whole lotta help you'd be once those Nazis shot you into pieces!” Bucky threw out his arms, restless and exasperated and trying to keep himself aware of every suspicious space out here with them at the same time. “Were you _tryna_ get yourself killed?!”

At this, Steve sighed and ducked his head, as if Bucky was overreacting. He, too, looked impatient, but composed himself enough to sound almost gentle as he spoke up again. “Bucky...” He tried.

“ _Steve!_ Jesus Christ...!” Was all he could say in retaliation, pacing closer again until he finally stopped in front of Steve's star spangled chest. Looking up into those defiant, determined eyes was like puncturing the angry balloon wedged inside Bucky's ribcage, and he reluctantly deflated somewhat. He shook his head at himself, knowing his scolding was getting him nowhere. “I feel like my mother...!” Bucky rubbed his hand over his face now, hoping to feel more mission-ready after clearing away the horrific images of death in his minds eye.

Steve's tone took a pique towards humorous, and without looking Bucky knew he was trying not to smile. “You look like her too – she still wears that expression whenever we get ourselves into trouble.”

“Oh yeah? Now I know _why_.”

There was a pause as they watched at each other, Steve's unmovable resolve having returned 100% and washed away that self-conscious doubt from earlier. Bucky tried not to let his feelings show on his face, but he was aware that he was slowly forgiving Steve even as the silence stretched.

“A kid is out there...?” He finally asked.

Steve's features relaxed a little as he realised he was back in Bucky's good books again. “If you come with me you might miss the ride home.” He informed him, a clear warning. Bucky just huffed in amusement.

“This you tryna tell me you don't want my company, Rogers...?” He tried to joke and succeeded in drawing a fond smile from his best friend.

Steve then turned and pulled on the ripped fabric covering the back end of the abandoned truck, tugging it easily away and tossing it to the ground to improve visibility from inside.

“There's a manor house on the outskirts of the grounds where Fertig took people.” Steve explained then gestured for Bucky to follow him as he climbed into the front seat, starting up the engine. “The kid's dad said he was taken yesterday so there's still a chance he's not... Buck, this place isn't just a prison, they were capturing people to experiment on them.”

Bucky looked at him, remembering the study he'd found with the cage and that particular man trapped inside. By the sour look on Steve's face, he'd learnt this fact the hard way. Bucky forced back the itch starting up over his skin as they began to drive, heading over uneven ground and leaving the impressive, foreboding view of the fortress to shrink away out of the back window.

Only now did he notice the state of disrepair the Captain America uniform was in, with bloody rips splitting the fabric as though they'd been put there deliberately...

“You alright?” He asked. Steve raised an eyebrow at him as the truck trundled along, the exhaust puttering warmly. Then he noticed what Bucky was looking at.

“I'm fine. Fertig...” He gestured at the gashes as though it was nothing, but the way his grip tightened on the steering wheel told Bucky otherwise.

“You found him.” He stated darkly, turning away from Steve's bloodied uniform and frowning out the front window in displeasure. Beyond the cones of light from the headlights of the truck, they were driving through almost solid darkness. Steve seemed to have a sense of where he was going at least.

“I found _her._ ” He corrected. Bucky just turned to look at him with a tiny frown of confusion, his question dying in his throat when Steve's lips pursed in hatred as he watched the road, his gloves squeaking on the steering wheel with the pressure of his grip. “She's dead.”

Bucky silently considered everything he was hearing and applied it to Steve's obvious severe dislike toward Fertig. He eyed the healed gashes over his friend's body again, his own level of tolerance going right out the window for this woman, also.

“I found pictures, and a letter in German which I think was intended for Schmidt, but I lost them all. Fertig mentioned something about a – a man who had betrayed Hydra, someone they were hiding here amongst the POWs.” Steve sighed dejectedly, fidgeting in his seat a little. “I don't know who she was talking about, but apparently he's already dead. It might not even matter anymore... but we have no way to find out now.”

Bucky listened attentively, cogs turning in his brain and sending him unwanted images. He ran his fingers gently over the stolen Hydra gun resting obediently on his lap, thinking about the first time he'd used one and what had happened to him afterwards...

They drove on in silence for a minute or two, the truck bumping over the earth and carrying them further into the inky black void.

“...I might know who she was talking about.” Bucky finally said, turning to look at Steve's profile in his Captain America helmet.

Blue eyes turned to him in surprise, then softened when they must have picked up the discomfort on Bucky's face. “What is it, Buck?”

Bucky lowered his gaze to his lap and sighed heavily through his nose, struggling to get the words out. “I found someone. Me and Falsworth found a man, locked in a cage. He was separate from the others, and he...” He took a tight grip of the gun, trying to will some of its raw, buzzing energy into himself. “He was there.” He admitted, forcing himself to look back up. “In Azzano.”

Steve glanced at him in trepidation, connecting the dots all by himself. “What happened?” He asked tightly, once he understood that Bucky was talking about one of his torturers from his own time as a prisoner of war.

“He was dead already, but there were mountains of notes scattered around the room – it was like a madman's ramblings. We got a whole bunch of them. Maybe Stark or someone'll find some solid answers in there?” Bucky suggested helpfully, hoping something of his discomfort could be of use. Steve watched him a moment longer, forehead wrinkled in concern behind his cowl. Then he nodded, turning back once more to face the windscreen.

“Maybe.”

They didn't continue the conversation, and finally Steve cautiously slowed the truck until they rocked to a stop with no more road left to follow: the headlights were shining into a wall of greenery, dense and overgrown and taller than the truck. It was blocking their path directly, and spanned away to both sides as far as their light illuminated.

“What the hell...?” Bucky squinted, trying to make sense of what they were looking at. He thought back to that aerial surveillance map from the start of the mission and worked to somehow pinpoint which direction they'd travelled in. “...are we at the maze?” He asked eventually, hoping he was wrong.

“Maze?” Steve eyed him, clearly with no answers of his own. “What maze?”

“On the map – there used to be a maze somewhere in the grounds. Obviously no-one's been gardening up here since before the war, so I guess it'd be a little overgrown by now...”

Together they peered into the hedge, a huge black smudge in an equally black environment. It could be huge for all they knew, and it would be nearly impossible to see where the maze ended and the mountainside continued.

“Dammit!” Steve hissed, slumping in his chair in defeat, and they both sat there in silence for a pregnant pause with nothing helpful to say. Then Steve leaned his forehead forward on the steering wheel, his sculpted back heaving with deep, deliberate breaths as Bucky watched silently from the passenger seat at a loss for what to do next.

The weapon on his lap hummed static energy between them, angled just right so that when Steve turned his head to peek at it, the reflection shone bright and ethereal in his eyes. They blinked, staring into the glowing barrel before narrowing slightly in an act of defiant rebellion.

Steve sat up suddenly, reached for the keys and turned off the engine. “We have to go through.”

Bucky half laughed, half gawped at his friend like he'd just said he was an agent of Hydra. “You've gotta be jokin'.” His expression fell into one of pure scepticism when Steve opened the driver's side door and dropped out onto crunchy grass beneath them.

“It's the quickest way.” He said simply, then closed the door with a solid _clunk_. Bucky stared after him.

He scrambled to follow his friend, jumping out of the vehicle and catching himself on practised feet. “Through a _maze_? I knew you were ten kinds of stupid, Stevie, but this...!” He caught up with him standing before the hood of the truck, gazing up at the towering height of the wall of hedges. Bucky looked up with him to were the headlights tapered off and the world became one huge dark shadow. “Quickest way, huh...?”

Insects chirped in the darkness, a soft background hum to break up the silence. The two soldiers looked at each other, Bucky dubious and Steve still wearing his righteous, determined face. “We can cut straight through. With that.” Steve pointed to the gun in Bucky's slack grip, the burbling blue core to it simmering softly.

Bucky looked down at his hands, shifting the weapon experimentally. Out here, surrounded by utter darkness outside of the circle of the headlights, it was like he held a torch with a thin beam of light shining out from the end in a sharp line. He directed it up onto the hedge – the top was just outside of the headlights' reach, it appeared – and watched the little leaves shift with intense shadows. He then met Steve's gaze in understanding before taking a few steps back and aiming up at the expanse of hedge right before them.

“You better be right about this...” He muttered, then pulled the trigger.

That tell-tale rush of ravenous energy burst from his fingertips and sliced through the hedge like a knife through butter, leaving a crackling, smoking gap encircled by leaves now burning orange and withering away into ash as they watched.

Bucky and Steve swapped avid looks, then he got to work carving out a space large enough for them both to fit through using sparks of bright fire. They left the truck and the fortress behind, holding the Hydra gun aloft and together they deliberately ventured into the looming, distinct stillness of the hedge maze.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! I don't think I want to write the word “truck” or “tank” again for a while... :P I hope I didn't lose you along the way there, and that you're ready to find out what happens next on the adventure... x)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features the most extensive gore of the story – if you'd like more clarification, as always, please head on down to the end notes. We're deep in the third act now, where the stakes and the tension are really beginning to rise...
> 
> Art is once again by Samthebirdbae :^)

 

Captain America and Bucky Barnes ran along narrow tangled paths, hefting the strong circular shield and commandeered Nazi gun which illuminated their way with a stripe of beautiful light. Bucky sent fireballs out ahead of them, clearing the way for them to delve deeper through the labyrinth and separate themselves further from the way in with every step.

Yet, even though they'd started off so sure, the further they got into the maze, the more circles they seemed to run in – the hedges were playing with them, leading them away from their intended route and appearing to change and close in around the two soldiers with their own sense of glee. Although they had a light to see by and a breadcrumb of smouldering hedges at their back, somehow the trail had become haphazard until the men found themselves slowing down, becoming disorientated amongst the never-ending foliage that swayed in the quiet wind and made ominous shapes in the corners of their eyes.

Bucky's senses were prickling again and he kept remembering about that last Nazi he was sure had still been out there back at the tanks. They were in no danger of being crept up on in here though – they themselves didn't even know where they truly were.

“Come on, it's this way -” Steve started leading toward the corner curving up ahead, intending to follow it round and change direction yet again.

“I don't think so...” Bucky argued, sizing up the dead end on the other side and hoisting up his gun in preparation of shooting through it. Steve stopped, his shoulders stiffening and his voice dropping into a deep tone of irritation.

“Buck, I said I know where I'm going -”

“Then you'll know you're taking us back the way we just came in!” Bucky snapped, goosebumps tickling his skin as he scanned their shadowy surroundings yet again with sharp eyes, trying not to alert Steve to his true unease while his friend already had enough to worry about.

“No, _you're_ leading us way off course! You don't even know where we're supposed to be going in the first place, so just _trust me_ when I say I know where to turn -”

“Oh yeah – 'trust you'. Just like the time you got us lost in Central Park and we ended up walking in circles for 4 hours!”

Steve looked round at him, eyes glaring and indignant. “I was ten years old – that's hardly fair, Buck, and this is not the same!”

“It definitely feels the same!”

“It is _not_ the same!”

“Shut up.”

“ _You_ shut up.”

They both glowered in frustration, coming to a complete stop and resuming their efforts of struggling to tell the difference between one identical hedge and the other. With only a thin stream of blue light to see by and the ruffling of leaves all around, it wasn't difficult to feel the beginnings of paranoia creep up with each unexpected sound, and Bucky was only too aware that he could feel eyes on his back...

The sounds of nature, the distant tank and even the wind were significantly muffled in the confines of the maze, creating a hub of stuffy silence save for the sounds the soldiers made themselves. So when there was a rustle of movement behind him, Bucky turned sharply with his weapon aloft and tracked a small bird with his spotlight until it disappeared from the thin patch of sky he could see.

He exhaled quietly, slowly bringing the gun around to check over the muddy earth he and Steve had just covered and between the thick branches closing them in to this confined space. He couldn't see anything other than the godforsaken maze and unhelpful clusters of stars above their heads. He scowled to himself, trying to calm his restless instincts and turning back to Steve with a lingering eye on the darkness pooling behind them.

Currently, Steve was looking around with an expression of building confusion, much too clumsy and unsure himself to put Bucky's mind at ease. He looked right and left, as if finally taking his friend's opinion to heart and realising that in fact he _didn't_ actually know where they were going after all. Bucky grumbled under his breath, taking a few steps closer until he could turn Steve around by the shoulder.

“Idiot...” He said, devoid of any real intent this time as he purposefully bumped the side of his gun into his friend's utility belt. Steve looked down and got the message, then started fumbling with one of the little pouches.

Bucky just crowded closer, lifting his weapon to shine the light deliberately onto the compass Steve opened in his gloved palm. The dial flashed with a ring of blue and then he took note of the position of the needle. Apparently they were heading East, but he had no clue if that was a good or a bad thing.

“Right, where we goin'?” Bucky turned back to Steve for an answer, but his friend didn't seem to hear him; his face was soft and surprised as he gazed down at the little instrument in his hand in wonder, and Bucky eyed him in confusion until he followed his line of sight back down to the compass where the small image of Agent Carter was tucked into the lid.

He stared at it, putting two and two together and remembering giving Steve the newspaper clipping earlier this evening. It seemed so long ago, now. Bucky was aware of his friend at his side, of the visible release of the tension he'd been accumulating the deeper they went into the maze, and of the gentler rhythm to his breathing even since they'd been arguing. He almost smiled to himself: at least he knew his gift worked to calm Steve's nerves, anyway.

He would have averted his eyes, given the two of them a moment, but now wasn't the time. Instead, he turned back to see the warm, fond glow on his friend's face and to shake him out of it.

“Where we goin', pal?” He urged, gently this time, waiting for Steve to come back to the present.

“North.” Steve said to Carter's image, before finally tearing his eyes away to look around at their dark surroundings once again. “We're meant to be going North.” He stated, calm and confident this time, and followed the compass until he faced the right direction, that was ironically in the middle of where they'd both been trying to go. “Here.”

It was amazing to see the difference in him from mere seconds ago – it was like he'd just recharged his batteries, and Bucky found himself glad his gift of Agent Carter's picture hadn't been for nothing. He didn't voice his thoughts aloud as he raised his weapon and burned through the hedge with a roar of electricity and a flash of light.

When the sparks fizzled out and the orange embers left behind died, they were greeted by the sight of a huge ominous silhouette of a house, situated on the other side of the hedge.

They'd made it through the maze.

“Careful.” Steve stopped Bucky before he could step through the gap he'd just created, and they both stared up at the building and its dark, dormant appearance. “We don't know what's in there. Let's go slow.” They looked at each other in understanding, then Steve silently slid his shield onto his arm and slipped cautiously through the hedge first, Bucky following right at his heel.

The manor house was large and heavy in its foundations, knotted into the grass by webs of brittle branches clawing up its walls and thick tangles of bushes all swarming around the perimeter. There were two stories, a large balcony curving out of the side, and a single window was tucked into the roof where it was framed by two sharp stone spires. Venetian glass was shattered and missing from most of the many window panes, like large bullet holes puncturing along the entire length of the building and wrecking what was once beautiful. Although the manor house was much newer than the fortress, it was crumbling into an awful state of disrepair. It didn't look like anyone had been here in years.

Bucky and Steve crept along the shadow of the maze, ears strained for any signs of life besides themselves, when a distant droning of what was unmistakably an engine drilled toward them through the night. They turned around, looking back over the height of the hedge maze at a large, oblong aircraft just arriving over the distant peaks of the highest tips of the fortress.

Bucky could make out the Eastern Tower and the occasional flash from the cannon on what must have been the Keep roof. That meant the last tank was still advancing, and he prayed that Dugan would manage to keep it busy and off the newer, shinier target.

They were so far away that apart from the quiet hum of the engines, the whole scene was in mute. Bucky could still feel the heat of the cannon's energy in his ears, and watching it now as small and silent as it was gave him an odd sense of longing; his men were still over there, as were the prisoners of war they'd come all this way to find. He felt strange being separated from the action, but the familiar presence here with him stopped him from regretting his decision.

He could hear Steve crunching through the grass behind him until he came to stop at his side, and the two watched on, quiet and nervous and with baited breath as the aircraft came in to land.

  


~ ~ ~ ~

  


When the cargo door opened, the deafening beating of the engines and a blustering wind swept in throughout the aircraft, almost knocking Peggy off balance and causing her to grab a tight hold of the wall. She didn't shy away from the door, however, and just looked boldly past her chestnut locks whipping about her face to see through the open hatch.

Clutching the wall beside her was Colonel Phillips, his voice getting carried about and then swept away by the current. “Well what d'you know... the chorus girl did it!” He grumbled, the beginnings of fondness leaking into the gruff texture of his voice.

Peggy's heart leapt in awe and relief as she gazed down at the view beyond the aircraft – the Keep roof was packed with what must have been hundreds of soldiers, and they were all looking up and watching as their rescue arrived to whirl them away to safety. She smiled to herself in pride, eyes flitting between all those brave faces that had made it this far, and then she doubled her efforts to try and pinpoint one particular man amongst the rest...

An ear-splitting sound suddenly ripped through the aircraft's open hatch just as the whole thing flashed a brilliant shade of blue – Peggy covered her ears against the heated spike it caused, turning her attention to the large Hydra cannon and the little bowler-hatted man sitting at the controls. He fired another shot, clearly working at the double to keep the enemies at bay and allow the aircraft time to settle in.

“There's the cannon!” She announced to Phillips, still covering her ears and watching the Keep slowly grow closer beneath them.

“She _is_ quite a beauty ain't she?” Phillips assessed, the gleam to his eye betraying his own interest in manning such a weapon as that cannon.

Peggy continued her search of the crowd, looking for anything blue and red standing out in the aircraft's search lights, but was still unsuccessful when Howard managed to manoeuvrer them level to the Keep and hold steady as a large gangplank was extended from the side of the cargo hold.

POWs began to fill the space, young men and old, all exhausted and some clearly injured as they clung to other soldiers for aid. Peggy hurried over to one man who was missing a leg, unable to keep herself on the sidelines.

“Get this man some assistance.” She told a passing member of the crew, who nodded and disappeared into the thickening crowd filling up the deck. Peggy turned back to the soldier and placed her hand gently on his back, meeting his eyes in her own kind, strict way when he looked up in response to her touch. “You'll be alright, soldier. I think you all deserve a day off tomorrow, wouldn't you say?”

The man stared up at her, then attempted to stand in the presence of a lady before he remembered he couldn't. Peggy's heart ached for him, but she shooed any trace of it from her face. “I-I sure do, ma'am.” He croaked instead, and Peggy patted his back briskly in a reassuring gesture.

“Good. Then I should start by resting up now. It's a few hours back to London.”

“I ain't ever been to London, ma'am. Is it nice there?” The soldier rasped, with deep purple bags under his eyes and his dark cheeks covered with unruly stubble. Peggy looked down at him, taking in the sight of the tired, dishevelled man and all of the unimaginable things he must have experienced. She dismissed the urge to feel sorry for him.

He was a survivor, and he deserved nothing but her respect.

“It's much nicer than this place. I'm sure you'll love it.” She told him with a hint of a smile, and watched in satisfaction as the soldier sagged in relief beneath her palm. With him quelled, Peggy turned back to watch the influx of soldiers swarming up the gangplank.

More were flooding up onto the roof from inside the Keep, a steady stream of men that only fed the swell of pride in her chest for Captain America and his Howling Commandos for another job well done. Judging by the number of POWs it appeared they'd found everybody this time around, but no matter where she looked, Peggy still couldn't see the good Captain himself.

Gabe Jones unfurled from the crowd, helping POWs onto the aircraft and making sure everyone who passed him was safe. Peggy swept over the cargo hold, her eyes on the soldier's dark, handsome face until she reached his side.

“Great work, Jones! Is this everyone?” She leaned in to be heard over the racket, watching the men running madly across the roof and wobble in the fallout from the propellers that had only picked up now that Peggy was exposed to it on the gangplank. The Howling Commando turned to meet her eyes, at first surprised and then relieved to see her, and he smiled and tipped his head at her in thanks.

“Yup! You sure you got room for all o' them in there?” He looked toward the large aircraft and the space inside becoming steadily filled up.

“You'll have to take that up with Mr Stark, I'm afraid!” She offered a hand to a passing POW who was stumbling, before turning back to Jones. “Where is Captain Rogers? I couldn't see him out here or on deck!”

Peggy was quick enough to spot the shadow of a grimace that crossed Jones' face before he busied himself with helping out the crowd again. She looked at him, her brows lowering into an enquiring line above dark, concerned eyes.

“What is it?”

  


~ ~ ~ ~

  


Steve watched the distant shape of the aircraft, trying to ensure the crew was safe and out of range of the tank – it looked like Howard had landed at the Keep, and Steve tried to imagine all of the hundreds of POWs climbing aboard and finally being free of this place. He lingered a little longer, aware that he was wasting time and that Bucky was also reluctant to move on beside him, but they still had a mission to complete here.

“We should go.” He spoke up, voice splitting the silence and overruling the phantom sounds of the POWs' cries of relief in the hands of the allied forces. He turned to face the foreboding manor house again, putting his hand affectionately against Bucky's back when he followed him without question.

Steve was aware that they were actively turning away from their ride home, but the promise of the others' safety and finding the kid out here made the decision easier. He didn't care if he had to walk back to Britain – he wasn't leaving this place empty handed.

“Steve? Steve, where are you?” His radio crackled from his belt, and Steve almost jumped at the sound breaking the careful stillness around them. He recognized that voice immediately, and it sent his heartbeat racing faster than the sight of a creepy abandoned building in Hydra territory.

Steve and Bucky both stopped in their tracks, then he plucked free his radio and took a careful breath. “I won't make it onto the aircraft, Peggy. There's still something I have to do out here.” He hated the second of buzzing anticipation that followed, preparing himself for getting into trouble.

“I heard, something about a last soldier?” She didn't sound angry. In fact, she sounded perfectly amicable. “Where are you now?”

Steve continued with more reassurance and less defensiveness in his tone. “Me and Buck are approaching an old Manor House on the Northern edge of the grounds. We won't be able to make it back in time to catch you.” He turned around to look back out at the distant aircraft, picturing Peggy on board. He wished he could have a clear visual of what has happening over on the Keep, and swallowed down the lump that rose in his throat at the confirmation that Peggy was currently hovering directly above the danger zone. Then he tried to remind himself that she could very well take care of herself.

“That's alright, we'll swing over your way and pick you boys up when we're finished here.”

Steve's eyes widened and he clutched the receiver desperately. “No, Peggy!” He shouted, a cold breeze brushing by that ruffled his hair and blew chillingly through the rips in his uniform. He sought out Bucky, holding his gaze and reading the grim, mutual understanding passing between them. As he looked at his friend, standing defiantly with him and offering up his own escape, Steve found it more difficult to get the words out than he'd originally imagined. “Once you get everyone on board, you leave. Get the POWs to safety – that's the first priority here.”

This time the static dragged on painfully from the radio. Bucky was watching the exchange with hard features as he came to the same conclusion Steve had. “You think she's that mad at us?” The Sergeant asked quietly, just as Peggy's voice came back.

“Captain Rogers.” She sounded clipped, more professional that she had previously. “We'll handle the POWs. Don't you dare stray from your coordinates, understand?” Steve had to crack a smile at that, pleased when Peggy's personality slipped back through the line. “You're right about getting the soldiers to safety, but Stark says he'll think of something to get you all out of there too.”

“He always does.” Steve answered, looking back up at the large shadow of the manor house, slumbering so close to them now. He could see that the front door was open, or had broken off completely. What little curtains were still hanging were in shreds by the shattered windows, and a small portion of the roof had begun to cave in. “Once we get the kid we'll sit tight for retrieval. Now get outta here and good luck!”

“You too. Both of you.” She added, and then the line went dead.

Steve looked round to see Bucky watching him, appearing more satisfied than he had before. “At least we don't have to walk back.” He piped up, and Steve smiled warmly at him, feeling a large weight slide off his own shoulders also. “Good ol' Peggy, right...?” Bucky grinned back at him, the shape of his features illuminated softly in the blue light from his gun.

“Yeah.” Steve huffed in relief, entirely grateful for Peggy, and also for his best friend for always having his back no matter what. Instead of saying so aloud, he simply replaced his hand on Bucky's back and walked with him over the grounds toward the manor house. “Come on.”

They climbed through a fence of unruly brambles and ascended stone steps up to the porch, cautiously peering into the dark void beyond the busted-in front door. Bucky shone the weapon's beam of light into the house as they hovered at the threshold, Steve with his shield at the ready and adrenaline kicking in throughout his super soldier veins.

Behind them, the aircraft rose and flew away across the sky, shrinking into the night and leaving them well and truly alone. Steve took in a deep breath and met Bucky's eyes again, ice blue and unwaveringly loyal, then he took the first step into the mouth of the manor house and left the fortress behind.

  


~ ~ ~ ~

  


Dust puffed up in little swirls around their feet, making the air grainy and flicker as the torchlight from the Hydra gun swept back and forth behind Steve's back, illuminating the way. Dirty picture frames and cracked mirrors on the walls meagrely reflected the beam as it passed over them, and more than once the blurry image of his own reflection almost made Steve attack. He strained his ears for any sounds of movement in the large manor house, but the more he listened the deeper the eerie silence seemed to press into his skull. Finally, he had to accept the fact there were no hostiles waiting to ambush them... and that there was no young kid moving around or even calling for help..

They'd made it to the base of a wooden staircase that twisted up to the floor above and boasted a thick, expensive carpet now trampled with dirt and dust. Above it hung a window that allowed in a sprinkling of moonlight through a thick layer of grime, and helped Steve to locate and experimentally reach for a lamp on a little side table.

To his half-surprise, it clicked on and bathed the hallway in deep orange light.

Steve turned to look at Bucky who was watching him patiently, then straightened up to decide on the best place to go next: there were doors in the wooden panelled walls of the hallway that carried on behind the staircase. There were two large rooms beyond open archways on either side of he and Bucky, the closest of which, under the edges of lamplight that seeped out from the hall, appeared to be a sitting room. Or, what would have been one once. Steve narrowed his eyes, looking carefully through the archway as he scoped it out.

It looked like it was being used as a storage space – with wooden crates piled up around the place and clutter gathering on the soft fabric of the furniture. He thought he knew who had been using it.

“Should we split up?” Bucky asked from behind him, with a hesitance to his voice that told Steve he was still scrutinizing their surroundings for any unwanted company.

“No, stick close. I don't like this place...” Steve's eyes lingered on the crates before he pulled back and crossed the hall, poking his head into the next room. This one was noticeably darker until Bucky appeared beside him and shone blue light inside to improve their visibility, quickly revealing a large dining room.

More boxes. Steve hummed in displeasure.

“Come on.” He gestured Bucky to follow, then the two soldiers began to wade through the room. They turned on more lamps as they found them, eventually spreading enough light that it became easy to see past the veil of dust and neglect clinging to the manor house; there were signs of previous habitants in the disturbed pattern of dust, and the crates had already been pried open atop the surface of the dining table before being left behind with the contents untouched.

“Guns.” Bucky informed him, nudging the lids with his own weapon. “They must be reserves for the Hydra soldiers...” He mused darkly.

Steve was only half listening as he eyed the décor on the wall beside a stone fireplace and an old painting of the fortress: there was a thin curved blade reminiscent of a scythe and beside it a thick metal collar attached to a chain that draped down the wallpaper, strung up for display like a medal. He clenched his jaw at the memory of the bite of the collar on his skin before moving on, heading for the back of the room where a door led further into the house.

“Shouldn't we do somethin' about these?” Bucky asked even as he followed, once again showing Steve the way with his torchlight.

“They don't matter, we're here for the kid. I don't want to stay here any longer than necessary...”

If Bucky picked up on his unease, he didn't say anything, and they continued in silence until they found a draughty room with stone walls and broken windows at the very back of the house. This place was drastically less graceful than the rest of the manor so far, and Steve shivered when the night air wrapped around him and pressed in close to his skin.

His eyes skimmed over more Hydra clutter until he noticed a tapering pile of papers in the closest corner of the room, full of scrolls and notes in a creeping scrawl that made his heart jump in anticipation. Steve immediately moved toward the desk and scooped up the nearest paper, drinking in the handwriting he'd found and lost up at the very top of the Eastern Tower. He clutched it tightly, determined not to lose another shred of proof of Fertig and her schemes.

He was vaguely aware of Bucky checking out the place behind him but otherwise tuned out in an effort to memorize the words on the scroll, even if he couldn't understand them. There were more mentions of Dr Erskine and Captain America, and even 'Azzano' and 'Schmidt' cropped up once or twice, but what drew the most of Steve's suspicion was a code peppered throughout the passage: _RX-12_. It wasn't much to go on when he could hardly make sense of what he was looking at, but sent warning bells ringing in his head all the same.

Steve thought back to his confrontation with Fertig, scouring his memories in case there was something he'd missed that might help him now...

_My work is about learning how to break someone down, until they have no choice but to obey._

_How did he manage it...? Your Dr Erskine? Hydra could only hope to one day recreate the success of his last experiment without him..._

_We will have no need for Erskine... not when we have_ _you_ _..._

He remembered those photographs he'd found in Fertig's drawer and what she'd done to the poor soldiers on her lab table. Of what she'd promised to do to Steve himself. These kinds of experiments on POWs must have been running deeply throughout the whole Hydra organization, spanning from Zola in Austria, to Fertig here in Poland, to that mysterious man Bucky mentioned now lying dead in a cage of his own making. Steve tried to dissipate unwarranted images of his best friend as a prisoner here instead of Azzano, tied up and cut open at the hands of Fertig and Steve being too slow to save him.

He looked over his shoulder toward the shuffling sounds of Bucky slowly working his way around the room, that vicious gun still held tightly in his hands and the line of his body proving that he was by no means open to any form of attack. He wasn't vulnerable, he wasn't hurt. He was here, and Steve shook himself to chase away any unjustified fears for his friend's safety.

He had to be reasonable and focus on what was important _now_ , and busied himself with securely stowing the note from his hand into his belt. Even when it left his fingers, the implications of this place and Fertig's threats remained coiled tightly around Steve's bones like icy fingers.

She'd had an agenda here with her experiments. She'd had plans for what to do once she'd captured herself Captain America. With all this talk of Erskine and Schmidt's obsession with being superior, it wasn't all that difficult to put two and two together to work out what her plans had been here...

He didn't allow himself to dwell on it right now, and moved to collect more of the scrolls.

“What is that?”

Steve turned his head sharply, finding Bucky frowning down at something on a table at the other side of the room. He dropped his next handful of papers back onto the pile and crossed to his friend's side, intrigued. It looked like a table full of books and ornaments, until Steve got close enough to notice a neat set-up of glass beakers and vials tucked into a little stand, all boasting a liquid contents. His eyebrows pulled down as he studied the rest of the desk and landed on a small box holding an immaculate, _familiar_ looking syringe.

“Don't touch it!” He cried, snatching Bucky by the shoulders and pulling him back from the needles and the ominous liquid.

“Why? What is it?!” Bucky's eyes were wide but he didn't argue, just stayed where Steve put him and stared back down at the syringe in its perfect little case. There were two more on the table beside it, glinting blue from the flare of Bucky's gun, and Steve could instantly feel them stabbing into his side as clearly as when it had happened for real back atop the fortress walls.

He swallowed, eyeing the substance that had made him feel so weak and vulnerable to Fertig's ways, the drug she'd injected him with while he'd had his guard down. Steve looked back over the stoppered vials and beakers, reading the labels attached to their surface and curling his hands into white-knuckled fists.

RX-12.

“Wait!” Bucky's hand caught him by the shoulder when he attempted to take a cautious step closer. His friend didn't even know what was truly going on, but he still looked distrustful toward the vials and didn't seem fond of the idea of Steve getting too close. But after a reassuring look from his Captain, he released his hold on him and allowed Steve to carefully bend over the table to better examine the contents.

The liquid held a tinge of green, with shimmering particles floating throughout it perfectly innocuously, almost beautifully. But Steve knew just how they felt under his skin, and was instantly itching all over as though the drug was still crawling through his veins and tearing him down from the inside out.

“Steve?” Bucky questioned him, worry colouring his voice.

“We should get some to Stark, see if he can work out what it is.” He said, holding back the personal insult from his tone with difficulty.

“You don't know what it does...?”

Steve took a deep breath and straightened up again, gazing scornfully down at the table. “No.” He didn't want to see the look of horror cross Bucky's face when he learned of what had happened, or that Hydra had a way to, if only temporarily, put Captain America out of action. “We need to keep moving. Let's try the next floor.”

He clasped the case snugly shut around the syringe and tucked it into an inside pocket of his uniform for safe keeping, then led the way back through the manor house toward the main staircase.

  


~ ~ ~ ~

  


The soft halo of lamplight at the bottom of the stairs barely leaked onto the second floor, and Bucky flanked his Captain into the depths of the house yet again as the two soldiers became smothered in shadows the further they wandered from the entrance. He released silent little breaths of relief every time they checked another room and found no enemies, though they also found no kid, and their process of checking the house was inevitably dragging onto hopeless territory. Bucky tried not to let himself wonder if Steve had been misinformed about this kid's location, or if all of Fertig's muses had already been taken away to be disposed of elsewhere.

They were heading into the left wing of the second floor, past broken doors opening out onto the large brimming balcony, when Steve whispered, “I don't like this...”

Bucky kept up his continuous sweep of their surroundings, his eyes scrutinizing the blackness even after his torchlight moved on. “Me neither.”

“We should have found something substantial by now.” Steve sounded like he was frowning, with a stubborn set to his jaw.

“Yeah...”

Bucky turned his gaze to the back of his friend's head, lingering on the proud little wings painted onto the side of his helmet as Steve continued to look around them with his shoulders high and poised for the slightest indication of company.

He knew how much it meant to his friend – to rescue every single soldier this time, as if it could somehow bring back those they'd lost before. He also knew that nothing was just going to erase what had happened, even if they _did_ save everyone, and that prolonging their investigations out here to prove something didn't seem like it would be sensible or beneficial.

Bucky didn't want to put out any of Steve's staunch fire of pure righteousness, or give him reason to feel undeserving of Captain America's uniform again by taking this away from him, and felt a sorry weight on his heart when he opened his mouth to voice his concerns aloud.

“Do you think -?”

“No. We can't be too late.” Steve interrupted, practically reading Bucky's mind. “Let's try over this way.” He pressed on, his voice and that frown audibly deeper in denial. Bucky wasn't convinced, but trailed closely at his back all the same.

They started down a dark hallway composed of shattered windows and worn curtains that billowed slowly in the breeze, and Bucky focused on the black open doorway at the very end while keeping up the rear of their formation. Steve's broad shoulders swayed beside him, the tiny shiver of vibranium sounding from his arm a comforting melody in the otherwise absence of sound.

They had to go single file to fit through the door, and Steve disappeared into blackness for a moment before Bucky followed him inside and swept his blue torch around the new room.

The first thing that he noticed was the smell, swirling around his senses and slowly dawning on him as something he recognized. It turned his stomach, the instant fear and the instinctual knowing hitting him at once, and Bucky dreaded moving his gun to expose more of what they'd walked into. It smelled like being on the battlefield, like the sting after losing a member of his regiment to the dirt and the chaos of war.

It smelled like death.

Bucky couldn't make himself talk, to warn Steve or even stop him as he found and clicked on a light switch, this one illuminating a bulb hanging from the roof that revealed every inch of the room to their horrified eyes. Steve's breath rattled out of his lungs, and Bucky wasn't sure he didn't do the exact same thing.

This room was one of the larger ones they'd found, with walls of wood panelling and rich oak floors like the rest of them. Only this one was stained black with innumerable pints of blood, splattered onto the walls and dripping down the legs of ten separate tables still with the bodies of soldiers strapped tightly to their surface. Bucky wanted to throw up.

Instead, he forced his feet to move and carry him a few paces further into the carnage, gazing around at the bodies and flinching when he saw the true results of their treatment; all of them were dead, all with either limbs missing or their torsos split open, hollowed and glaring out at him as painfully as though he'd experienced it himself. He felt like he was falling backwards, like he himself was once again locked against a lab table and condemned to die at the hands of Hydra as if he was nothing more than a slab of flesh. His whole body felt cold and stinging all over again, and this time he thought he really _would_ throw up.

And then Steve was at his back, at his side, and Bucky used his proximity to gather himself back together and remind himself of where they were, and more importantly, _why_ they were here. They turned aghast eyes upon each other, both numb and with nothing to say.

They were already far too late for these men.

Bucky swallowed, feeling suddenly so very small surrounded by the gruesome horrors splayed out before him. He could barely even look at the men, didn't want to see their faces and believe that they had once been people. He didn't want to look and see his own face there, just another soldier that Hydra had stolen and destroyed.

He was painfully aware of how close he'd come to being one of them back on Zola's lab table, and by the way Steve was furtively avoiding his eyes now, he was thinking along those same lines.

After a few long moments of numb, nauseous shock, they pressed on, walking more closely together now as they continued their search of the bodies. Bucky tried not to touch or disturb anything, suppressing shivers at the way his boots stuck in the tacky black substance coating the floorboards and wearily eyeing long coils of chains draped over the floor. They looked like they had some sort of collar attached, and he deliberately side-stepped them.

He avoided looking at the wounds on the bodies, instead gently brushing aside ripped shirt collars for the soldiers' dog tags. All were missing, and none of the men were young enough to be this kid they were searching for.

“Let's go.” Steve croaked from his side, choked with rage, grief and disappointment all at once. Bucky followed quietly, a chill at his back when they turned out the light, returned to the hall and left the torture room and the unidentified, indecent bodies behind.

His throat felt dry and heavy, like he wouldn't manage to talk even if he tried. He blinked away the images staining his vision, dragging his feet and breathing deeply and evenly through his nose to keep the urge to scream in fury at bay. It was only when they were almost passing the balcony doors again that his senses flared –

And suddenly, Bucky _knew_ they weren't alone any more.

He span around, bringing up his gun with his finger an inch from the trigger just as a door banged open down the hall behind them. The clatter of the wood and rapid _thumps!_ of frantic feet preluded a black mass colliding with Bucky's side and knocking him backwards onto the ground, too quick for him to evade the incoming attack or even aim true with his weapon – it spluttered a whirling ball of blue fire into the ceiling, breaking clean through and ripping down the remains of the curtains covering the windows.

“Bucky!” Steve cried, but Bucky was too distracted by the wind gusting sharply out of his lungs and the insistent, wriggling shape pinning him down and wrestling for his gun to pay attention to anything else.

His attacker struck him in the face in a last-ditch attempt to land a blow before they were hauled off of Bucky, leaving him to scramble into a sitting position and gasp for breath as he looked up at Steve in dizzy shock; in the new dusty moonlight from the exposed windows, Captain America was holding the assailant clean off the ground with one hand, gripping a handful of the fabric at the scruff of the neck of a flailing, gangly looking man. A young boy. A kid.

When the wave of surprise and relief that crashed over him ebbed, the dull ache in Bucky's cheek helped to drag him back to the present. “Ow.” He grumbled irritatedly, rubbing at his aching jaw where he'd just been punched and climbing back onto his feet. He made sure to collect the Hydra gun and take a more secure hold of it, scowling at the kid who was blinking big dark eyes at he and Steve in as much surprise as they felt upon encountering _him_ this way.

Steve sighed in satisfaction, watching the young soldier like he would an unruly lap dog who only deserved a light ticking off. Bucky kept his distance, stretching out his smarting jaw while Steve did the talking.

“Easy there, soldier. We're not here to hurt you.” He said sincerely, his voice loud in the silence they'd purposefully preserved until now. The kid had stopped trying to get free and just gazed at Steve like he'd never seen another human being before. His dark hair was unkempt, his face thin and malnourished and he had bare feet, but he looked in a hell of a lot better condition that the other soldiers in this manor house.

“Y-you're... Captain America.” The kid uttered, a faint Italian accent to his young voice as he stared into those warm blue eyes.

At this, Steve just stared right back, and Bucky was attune to the fleeting expression of uncertainty that flickered over his features. Then it was gone, and Steve hesitated for only half a second too long before subconsciously straightening his spine and nodding once in confirmation. “I am.”

Bucky watched the exchange with his defensiveness melting away. He stepped in closer, eyes on the kid who seemed to be internally stuck somewhere between terror and disbelief. Steve was obviously aware of that fact too, and gently lowered the young soldier until he was safely back on his own two feet, though he kept a large, careful hand on the boy's shoulder for comfort.

“Your father asked me to find you. Are you alright?” Steve scanned the Italian kid with mothering eyes, and Bucky noticed the bruises and cuts digging into the skin of the boy's wrists and ankles with a sickening clarity. He chewed his tongue in distaste at the sight and what it represented, once again chasing away the gnawing chill in his bones from the lingering horrors of the room they'd just discovered.

The kid's eyes widened impossibly further and he stood a little hunched over on himself, either from tiredness or from self-consciousness that came from youth. “You know my Papi?” He asked, still a little slurred in his daze at the sight of Captain America before him.

Bucky's composure softened and he and Steve looked at each other, swapping tiny smiles of relief that they'd actually found the boy they'd been looking for and that soon all of this would be over. Steve turned back to the boy, crouching down slightly to appear less intimidating.

“I do. He's safe, and he's waiting for you with the rest of my team. Now we're going to get you out of here.”

The kid continued to stare, now looking injured and tired and just ready to go home. It seemed he'd expended the last of his energy on his surprise attack upon Bucky. The young soldier shook himself out of his stupor, his gangly frame beginning to shiver now, and simply said “Okay,” with unquestionable trust in his new companions.

“Okay – great, just... right.” Steve rambled, suddenly visibly conflicted over what to do first now they'd actually succeeded in their mission. He eventually settled on pulling out his radio and walking away a few paces. “This is Captain Rogers requesting extraction...”

Bucky turned back to the kid who was still watching after Steve and shivering so violently now his teeth were chattering. The two met eyes and then the young soldier pointed, stunned, at Steve's shield-adorning back. “That's Captain America.” He stated in awe, like he just couldn't believe it.

Bucky didn't manage to hold back a soft smile as he passed his Hydra gun from hand to hand. “I know, right.” He humoured him, ignoring the cold seeping in through his clothes when he removed his own jacket and swathed the thick fabric over the POW. “How'd you get away?” He implored gently.

“From _her?_ ” The kid shivered violently. “I managed to slip out of the cuffs she put on us, then I hid in that room until I heard someone outside...” Dark eyes flicked sheepishly up at him. “Sorry about the... for punching you.”

Bucky just offered a kindly smile, resting his hands on the kid's slim shoulders. “Don't worry 'bout it.”

The kid would have been fairly well built for his age before the war, but under Bucky's palms his frail arms felt reminiscent to the way Steve's had been before he'd undergone his super soldier transformation. He tightened his protective grip a little more.

“Out to the balcony, come on.” Steve interrupted them, and together the three soldiers made their way toward the double doors that would take them outside.

  


~ ~ ~ ~

  


The doors creaked and opened easily, exposing the large empty space of the balcony and a terrible, magnificent sight: Bucky could make out the shape of the maze he and Steve had cut their way through, and beyond that the distant burning remains of the Hydra tanks that glowed so brightly in the dark expanse of the grounds. After that was the spiked shape of the medieval fortress, imprinted against the surrounding mountains and illuminated faintly by the artificial lights strung up around its walls. It was quite a view.

They stopped walking in the centre of the balcony, huddled together around the precious cargo of their young charge and shielding him from the cold wind. Bucky could still feel the kid quaking, though he himself wasn't faring much better without the comforting weight of his jacket against his skin. He felt naked and exposed after what they'd just seen in there and upon knowing they were leaving those soldiers' bodies behind, but committed himself to protecting the one they _could_ save. They'd found the kid, and now it was just a matter of extraction.

Bucky caught Steve's eye from over the head of the POW between them. “So what happens now?” He asked. Instead of answering, his friend just nodded his head in the direction behind Bucky, who turned to pick out a tiny dark shape gliding through the pattern of the night sky. It wasn't long until the whir of the engines reached his ears and then the small aircraft was coming in to hover above the roof of the manor house, sending the wind whipping around them at a much faster velocity than it had been previously.

“Thank god for Stark, huh?” Steve called to be sure he was heard, and Bucky couldn't stop himself from eyeing the latest Stark contraption in wonder.

“You got that right.” He said, barely audible above the sound of the engines, and took in the sight of the streamlined aircraft as the shadow of it loomed overhead like a bird of prey. Then a door opened in the side of the body and a rope ladder unfurled from within, streaming through the sky until it was dangling over the balcony in a clear invitation.

“Let's go!” Steve ordered, and together he and Bucky manoeuvred themselves to get the POW into the best position for the next step of the plan. The kid seemed to have been refuelled with new energy upon the sight of their ride, and helped the two soldiers to get him under the ladder and lift him so he could grip the rungs securely. Steve pushed him up higher, ensuring the kid was clinging tightly to the wavering rope ladder before he jumped up himself.

Bucky went last, accepting Steve's outstretched hand and allowing his friend's super soldier strength to pull him up off the balcony and onto the end of the ladder. It swung precariously in the wind, sending spikes of vertigo into Bucky's limbs with every movement, but together the three soldiers began to close the distance between the balcony and their route to freedom.

  


~ ~ ~ ~

  


“Hold her steady!” Peggy called behind her to the driver's seat, her eyes fixed on the gaunt, determined face of the last allied soldier to leave the horrors of this place behind him.

“I built this baby with my own two hands – I think I know how to drive her!” Howard Stark replied with a hint of both serious concentration and glee.

Peggy leaned out of the open door in the side of the aircraft, unfazed by the height and the dangers, and reached out a hand toward the ascending POW even when he was still too far away to reach. Her gaze flicked briefly over the soldier's head, finding a blue helmet and even bluer eyes that met her own. “Steve,” She breathed, watching encouragingly as they climbed the ladder toward her.

  


~ ~ ~ ~

  


Steve stayed close at the POW's heels so he would be ready to catch or support him should he have to, but the kid was determined and he only wobbled a handful of times on the unstable structure of the ladder. Steve allowed himself quick glances up past the POW's frame, growing addicted to the fierce douse of simmering warmth that washed over him upon just seeing Peggy waiting for him, but he didn't allow himself to become distracted yet.

The kid slipped when the rope ladder swung violently, but Steve grabbed him and helped him regain his footing, pushing him gently but surely further up the rungs in an effort to speed things up. They were going too slow, and so Steve began to climb one handed while half-guiding half-carrying the POW up with him.

“Howard, let's get moving!” Peggy's order faintly whipped around his head, and then the climb became more disorientating when the aircraft began to drift through the sky in a slow arc to turn itself around for the direction of home.

Steve's heart began to pound in eager anticipation at the prospect of finally ending this mission, getting every single man to safety and leaving this place far behind in the dust. They were nearing the top of the ladder, and Peggy was there with her chestnut hair flying around her face and stretching out a hand to receive the kid, and Steve just had to lift the young soldier _that_ little bit higher...

He heard a cry from below and jolted with a sudden icy twist in his gut – Bucky had fallen behind, and as Steve watched, his friend's fingers slipped from the rope ladder as he was tugged cruelly back down a 20ft drop to the hard surface of the balcony below. He was clutching at something thick and dark around his throat that glinted once in the small aircraft's lights.

“Bucky!” Steve yelled, his heart seizing completely until his friend landed solidly on his back, then proceeded to instinctively curl over onto his side in the aftermath of the painful impact. The soothing knowledge that Bucky seemed to be alright was short-lived, because in the next moment Steve noticed the woman standing beside his friend's frame, and the long coil that attached him to her hand. “No...!” He gasped, stricken with fear when the woman's head tilted up and two black, evil eyes winded him as sharply as two bullets to the chest. “Bucky!”

His shouts did nothing to stop Gert Fertig wrapping the length of her chain around Bucky's shoulders then using the leverage to drag him, snared tight in her clutches, across the balcony and through the glass doors back into the manor house.

Steve felt like he'd just plummeted through the air himself, his thoughts and his muscles screaming in wild confusion as he tried to make sense of what had just happened and subsequently push the POW higher up the rope ladder. Steve climbed one more step and practically threw the kid soldier up the last few rungs and closer to Peggy's awaiting grasp.

“Steve, what's happening?” She called, her eyes as wide and alarmed as Steve felt as she stared down to the now empty balcony below.

“It's Fertig! She took Bucky!” Steve cried, giving the POW one last push until he was securely caught in Peggy's iron grip. When it became clear he wasn't going to fall under her custody, Steve wasted no time in turning away and checking the height of his current position with his pulse now reverberating through his bones like the frantic beat of a drum.

The world below was moving – Stark was carrying him away from the manor house and sailing over the grounds while smoothly picking up speed. Steve took in a sharp breath, preparing himself.

“Wait!” Peggy tried, clearly knowing what he was about to do.

Steve jumped anyway.

  


~ ~ ~ ~

  


He had already missed his window of opportunity to land on the balcony, and Peggy stared after him while biting back the lump in her throat as she watched him drop the full height of the manor house and hit the grass outside with a powerful collision that showed in every angle of his body. He barely paused, simply sprinted single-mindedly toward and up the steps of the front porch then disappeared into the gaping frame of the front door that grew smaller with every passing second.

Peggy turned her attention to the last prisoner of war, gripping his hand tightly and helping to pull him safely onto the aircraft where he sprawled on the deck by her side, exhausted and shivering and shrouded in a too-large, woollen coat.

“We've got you, soldier.” She informed him, but the man – boy, it looked like – was simply too exhausted to respond. She placed a firm hand on his arm to keep him close and secure, then turned to call over her shoulder to their pilot, “Come about!”

The aircraft began to turn, too slowly and too widely for her liking, and Peggy now found that she couldn't tear her eyes away from the place that Captain America had just gone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky encounter the bodies of tortured soldiers, some of which have been cut open and their internal organs removed. It's fairly graphic with mentions of blood and detailed descriptions are used to paint the scene. There are also mentions of that strange drug Steve encountered earlier, though nobody is affected by it this time.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we are at the crescendo of the story! Canon-typical action and violence galore! Also, please check the end notes if you want to know more about the brief torture featured inside.
> 
> Check out the heart-breaking art Samthebirdbae did for this chapter! And go visit her on tumblr to give her appreciation for all her hard work: [SamthebirdbaeOnTumblr](https://samthebirdbae.tumblr.com/post/164473934573/it-filled-him-with-both-nausea-and-a-thrill-of)
> 
>  
> 
> And let us begin... ;^)

 

The lamps were still on inside the house and guided Steve as he pelted along the hallway and straight up the stairs toward the next floor.

“Bucky!”

He followed the distant sounds of his best friend protesting against being stolen by the Hydra prison warden, his feet thumping off the old carpet and his body ringing with a cocktail of fear and adrenaline. He burst out onto the second story and into a wall of darkness, broken only by the thin light where Bucky had shot down the curtains earlier. Steve faltered in the sudden gloom, his eyes adjusting while his pulse played out a frantic procession he could feel in his skull. Then he noticed there were no more sounds of a tussle, no hint to lead him in the right direction, and that he'd lost the trail.

“Buck?!” His voice trailed away to no answer.

Steve looked left and right, trying to hear over his own panic and decipher which way to go, then with a sudden icy squeeze to his gut, turned and raced through the left wing and down a narrow corridor to a black open doorway at the very end.

The light flickered on when he scrabbled at the switch and brightly showcased the ten mutilated bodies laying exactly where he'd left them. Steve scanned the room just in case, hating himself when he felt somewhat consoled to find there were only the same soldiers there that he'd seen before, then he almost jumped out of his skin when he stepped back into a rattling pile of chains. He wheeled around and kicked free from the cold metal tinkling and tangling around his ankles, his face contorted into a mask of frustrated distress under his helmet.

Bucky wasn't here, and neither was Fertig. Steve looked around once more before working his way anxiously across the room and darting back through the door.

  


~ ~ ~ ~

  


There was someone speaking in German over his head, snake-like and with discernible venom even though Bucky couldn't understand the words themselves. His whole body felt heavy and stinging, wrapped within what felt like chains around his torso and a sluggish daze from his fall from the rope ladder.

He was being dragged by something solid clamped around his throat, cutting short his attempts to shout and preventing him from getting his feet properly under himself to steal back any level of advantage. The Nazi was talking to _him_ , he knew, and he could hear the faintest feminine colouring to the voice, but his dazed mind didn't allow him to try and focus on the foreign words.

Bucky writhed and jerked his shoulders as best he could but his captor only pulled the chain around his torso impossibly tighter, rendering him helpless to escape – he couldn't do anything but struggle fruitlessly, trying not to panic at the very air closing in on him and choking off his voice completely.

It was dark all around but the German woman held a torch aloft as she strode purposefully through the manor house, the carpeted _clump!_ of her boots resounding unnervingly close to Bucky's head. He tried to blink through the foggy haze clinging to his awareness and caught flickers of passing doors and corners as he was tugged along.

Finally, he was tossed against a hard wood floor and left gasping for breath beneath the pressure of that chain on his skin. When a little oil lamp seeped to life from somewhere behind him, Bucky briefly had to shut his eyes against the glare, laying on his back and willing the world to come back into acute focus around him. When it did, he groaned through the effort and the pounding in his head as he pulled himself up into a sitting position without the aid of his hands and attempted to climb to his feet.

“Hey!” He grunted in protest when sharp fingers grabbed at him and tugged until his back hit something thin and hard. Then his vision blacked out when something clattered cruelly against his temple, sending hot spikes of pain shooting through his skull and down his cheek. He slumped in his restraints.

He could still hear fuzzy sounds – the slither of moving chains, slow footsteps spinning around him, and his laboured breathing most of all. When the initial blow bled into a throbbing ache and his vision returned, Bucky was sitting up with those chains no longer around his body. Instead, he could feel cool metal clasping his wrists, handcuffed together behind his back and around a thick table leg – smooth and carved and hardy.

Bucky's pulse skyrocketed, sending immediate thumping ripples through his limbs until his toes turned numb and his heart threatened to claw out of his ribcage and crawl away. He jerked into a state of hyper-alertness, the fresh gash on his temple burning and his chest shuddering through painful breaths as he tried not to hyperventilate: he was once more a captive of Hydra, victim to constant spikes of cold fear upon every shuffle and tinkle of unseen instruments from somewhere just out of his sight...

That woman was moving around behind him, making a series of quiet clinking sounds that made the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end. Bucky strained to try and see his kidnapper, twisting his neck and blinking away the blurriness lingering in his vision.

A dark shape was hovering just at the edge of his peripherals, ignoring him completely. There was the chain she'd caught him with, coiled on the floor with a thick collar glaring at him like vicious jaws threatening to clamp back around his neck. It glinted menacingly in the orange lamplight.

Bucky winced, turning away and swallowing down the sickly dread scratching at his tongue as he instead turned his attention to his new surroundings: he was in a boxy room with peeling green wallpaper and a musty smell that scratched at his nose. He could see partly out of the door he'd been brought in through and into the everlasting void outside. The oil lamp was the only source of light in the room, flickering and casting jagged shadows that danced against the walls.

He had no idea where in the manor house he currently was.

Succumbing further to the tendrils of claustrophobia, Bucky stubbornly began testing the handcuffs, wriggling and throwing his weight against the sharp bite of metal and not giving up even when it became apparent they were far too strong for him to break.

“You may try to escape, but you shall be punished accordingly for your efforts.”

Bucky froze at the sound of the voice, forcing back the shiver tickling his skin. He opened his mouth, attempting to speak several times before his own voice finally obeyed him. “You're Fertig, right...?” He managed, without probable logic or reason, his words hoarse but loud with disdain. The clinking from behind him paused, giving him a tiny sense of satisfaction that he'd captured her attention. “Aren't you supposed to be dead?” He asked, slowly resting his head back against the table leg in the hope of appearing more confident that he currently felt.

The wound on his temple was smarting hotly and the flurry of his heartbeat was thundering like a hoard of elephants inside his ribcage. Bucky carefully continued his futile ministrations on the handcuffs, moving much more subtly this time.

There was a long pause of absolute silence in which he wondered if he'd pushed his luck with the wrong person, before he received an answer. “There are many greater things than death...” Fertig finally drawled, causing goosebumps to raise on Bucky's skin.

He swallowed, frustrated by his circumstance and the stubbornness of the handcuffs at his back, then flinched when Fertig moved suddenly. She walked calmly around him to stop by his side.

“It is unfortunate that your _'Captain America'_ has other engagements elsewhere, and it means that you will have to do...”

Bucky defiantly didn't look at her, agitated at the mention of Steve, and turned his face away until she crouched down to force them both at the same level. Breathing steadily to restrain his anxious nerves, he curled his hands into fists behind his back, digging his fingernails into his palms to find the strength to make himself meet her gaze full-on. And when he did, Bucky felt the entire reserves of his courage drain away like water down a drain.

He gasped, almost choking on his tongue and yelp of horror as he stared, stricken, into the awful face from his nightmares come to life, and its two piercing, evil eyes... Bucky only just stopped himself from pressing back against the table leg like a cornered animal to get away, his fingers turning numb from the force with which he was crushing them in his trembling fists. Evil Eyes had frozen too, a slow expression of dawning recognition flooding the pallid, androgynous face that had turned out to be Gert Fertig all along...

Those empty eyes stared, transfixed upon his face as Fertig slowly tipped her head to one side, studying him like he was a prize that had just been dropped right into her lap. Bucky almost mewled in fear when the prison warden's lips slowly turned up and she sneered at him, like a tiger to a fawn in recognition of its prey.

“It is _you_...” She drawled through long, yellow teeth, blinking raptly at him, then tipped her head back and laughed deeply in a way that felt like it was pinching Bucky's skin and making him bleed.

He was speechless and could feel his lungs filling and emptying rapidly in hard, quick breaths as Fertig's evil eyes trailed down from his face and stopped at his shirt collar, scalding him like hot water against his skin. He grunted in objection when she reached out a calloused hand and plucked his dog tags off his chest, ticking the metal together in her palm.

“James Barnes?” She read aloud, as though she'd expected something greater.

Bucky jerked his tags free from her clutches, staring at her with wide, perturbed eyes as his skin crawled like insects running rampage over his body. Fertig observed him calmly, tipping her head to one side again as her gaze struck him as sharply as needles.

“You are afraid of me.” She noted, the slightest twang of pity in her tone. Bucky pressed his lips together hard, glowering into her face with all the control he could muster. It didn't seem to fool the warden at all. “Don't be. You shall be well taken care of.” She said simply, reaching out and patronizingly re-positioning Bucky's dog tags against the middle of his chest.

He pulled away from her touch as far as the table leg digging into his spine would allow, feeling dirty where her fingers had touched him. “Yeah? I saw what you did to those other soldiers!” He snarled, the fire of defensive anger reigniting in his gut.

Fertig watched him patiently. “No no, James. We have something much better in store for _you_.” Bucky paled under her words before the warden reached for something upon the table he was handcuffed to. “We have a lot of time to make up for – we thought we had lost you. Who knew you were right there all along...”

Bucky's chest was still heaving, this time with a mixture of disgust and fury. “What the hell're you talkin' about? Who's 'we'?!” He clenched his fists tighter in an effort to stop them shaking.

Fertig settled again, holding something in her hands that he couldn't see. She paused, her black eyes thoughtfully trailing over the green wallpaper above Bucky's head. “Myself, Arnim -”

His throat closed off suddenly, the last thread of hopeless deniability snapping in half and he only managed to utter the name under his breath. “Zola.”

She looked right at him again, her eyes just as plaguing as her fingers had been. “Of course. This is, technically, his operation.”

Bucky stuttered for breath for a moment, trying to appear calm on the outside while wrestling a tidal wave of burning alarm blaring through his veins. “So what does that make you? His piece on the side?” He said snidely, grasping at straws.

“Please, James.” Fertig dismissed him, unimpressed. “We are professionals, as I am sure you remember...”

Upon the sharp impact of those words, Bucky had to turn his head to escape her garish face and blink away the hot prickles building suddenly behind his eyes.

_Blurry shapes crowding over him –_

_Poking and prodding his arms with needles and nasty little instruments –_

_Faces, worming sickeningly under his skin in icy waves –_

_Lightning striking his body, a pain fierce and vicious and like no other –_

Unwillingly, he continued to listen to Fertig beside him.“We still talk of you often, Arnim and I. We had great plans for you.”

Bucky turned large, horrified eyes back on her, her words wrapping around his consciousness like that collar around his throat: poisonous and lethal. He heard Zola's accented voice, a wisp of a memory flitting through his mind.

_We are Hydra... and you are ours now._

“Now, James, I think it is time to continue from where we left off in Austria...”

Fertig shifted, producing a shimmering syringe from her clutches and trying to guide the long pointed needle into his arm. Bucky jumped and began wriggling fiercely against the handcuffs, feeling like all the air had just been sucked right out of the world and that he was sure to follow. He recognised the slight green substance from his search of the manor house, and Steve's instantaneous aversion to it was enough warning for Bucky.

“No don't!” He protested, twisting away as far as he could manage and kicking out with his feet. Fertig wrestled with him, roughly manhandling him until she had a painfully tight grip of his upper arm and a gleaming yellow smirk on her face.

“I had forgotten how much you like to fight, James. The trouble you had caused the first time we met. My other experiments, they were... less inclined to disagree with me the longer we worked together -”

“I'm not your experiment!” Bucky spat, furious and panicking and trying to breathe as his boots scraped uselessly across the floor. Fertig came in with the needle again, the tip brushing his skin before he squirmed and this time managed to force the entire weight of the desk back a foot to evade the probing needle.

Fertig gripped him again, pressing him down with all of her impressive strength to stop him getting any further. Bucky could feel her hot breath ruffling his hair and she grinned down at him like a shark, all black eyes and long teeth that turned his stomach in terror. “Are you not...? Our work is true: the results are already showing. You belong to Hydra now, it is in your destiny.”

Bucky was quaking, fighting the bile rising up in his throat. His arm was turning numb under her fingers and the liquid inside the syringe was sloshing and sparkling menacingly as it came closer to the crease of his elbow once again. In a fit of denial and desperation, Bucky slammed his shoulder into Fertig's body and managed to send her reeling off balance – it was only a small victory, until the syringe she'd been holding in her hand slipped and smashed upon the exposed floorboards, oozing shimmering liquid from its broken casing.

The warden caught herself with nimble limbs, whipping her head around to glare furiously at the shattered pile of glass and its spilled contents before she turned onto Bucky. This time he didn't flinch, and just stared her down unapologetically while raging storm clouds amassed and clashed darkly in the blank expanse of her eyes. Suddenly, she stood up and looked down at him coolly.

“Like I said: my other experiments were less inclined to disagree with me. But you are not my other experiments, are you James...?”

Bucky scowled up at her, his body tense and ready to defend himself again at a moment's notice. But Fertig simply reached up onto the desk behind him and plucked her torch off its surface. It clicked on in the buzzing silence between them, eclipsing her from his view behind a bright, piercing circle of light shone deliberately into his eyes.

“But we shall come to an agreement someday. You _will_ learn to obey.”

When she let up and he managed to blink away the lingering glare, Bucky was left behind to watch the dark shape of Fertig walking away down the corridor beyond the door, the yellow ring from her torch slithering along the hallway before it disappeared from his sight completely.

  


~ ~ ~ ~

  


“ _Come on!”_ Bucky grunted, the _clink!_ of his handcuffs scraping against the solid wood of the table leg at his back. His teeth were tightly clenched, the force of his heels carving wood shavings from the floorboards as he scrabbled to try and free even an inch of space for his hands.

The desk he was chained to was impossibly heavy and well-built, and Bucky growled from his chest with the effort of sliding it backwards a fraction at a time – his wrists were aching and chaffed from clashing the handcuffs around fruitlessly and the wooden desk groaned each time it was moved. Bucky pushed again, expelling all of his breath in another attempt to force something to _give_ until there was a distinct, concluding _thunk_ as the desk hit the far wall. There was nowhere else left to go.

He huffed, giving the last of his energy into cutting a tiny, insignificant chunk off the leg with his cuffs before he was forced to admit defeat. Bucky sagged back down against the floor, exhausted and aching and having only cleared himself a few feet of distance from where he'd started. The door was gaping and empty, the blackness outside too dense to provide any warning of his captor's return. He stared into the hallway, trying to catch his breath while his chest stuttered and his head throbbed painfully behind his wet eyes.

Would they strap him down again? Drug him beyond all comprehension but the excruciating agony? Would they split him open from his sternum to intestines and remove his insides for Steve and the Howlies to one day find his rotting corpse amongst the dead...?

Bucky blinked away the blurriness gathering at his lashes, defiantly fighting back against the memories and awful possibilities pressing in around him as tightly as that metal collar. He heaved on the handcuffs again, though this time was a significantly weaker attempt. His wrists felt rubbed raw and his shoulders hurt, and Bucky finally allowed himself a moment of respite to close his eyes and rest against that merciless table leg.

There were no approaching sounds, nothing to suggest he wasn't entirely alone in the huge vastness of the manor house. Just the sighs and creaks of the old building around him and the tiniest lick of wind from somewhere outside. Bucky listened to the internal procession of his raging heartbeat, forcing himself to breathe steadily in and out in even breaths.

He thought back over the whole mission; beyond finding and liberating the POWs, beyond stumbling upon that little study with the imprisoned body of his Nazi torturer, before even breaching the courtyard and fighting their way through the Hydra agents swarming around inside... they had been stuck at the huge Western Gate, an impossible obstacle until Steve had given his all to lift the whole thing with his bare hands.

Bucky's shaking fingers closed gently around his handcuffs again, feeling the metal and following the curve until he found the little chain connecting them. It was so thin and short, barely a few links, yet such powerful, unyielding metal to his non-super soldier touch. He squirmed a little, his eyes still shut and all of his senses working together to paint him a picture of the handcuffs: he measured the chain until he had an equal amount in each hand, tightened his grip, and pulled.

It was impossible – the metal rejecting his efforts as it had done those countless times before. Bucky pried further, straining his arms until they began to quake. The chain didn't budge.

“ _Come on!”_ He tried again, tugging harder and hissing as he struggled to attain any sort of slack. His feet resumed their desperate kicking, searching for purchase upon the bare floor as he hauled his whole body into the cuffs, feeling the skin of his wrists turn hot and sticky and wetness trickle down between his trembling fingers.

The next thing he knew was a loud _CRACK!_ and a squawk of broken metal, and then he was tumbling forward and catching himself before he hit his face off the floor. A single severed table leg clattered away across the room a moment before the three-legged desk tipped over and collapsed – spilling its contents with the heavy thunder of wood, the rustle of papers and shrill _smash!_ of glass shattering all at once.

Bucky cringed from the booming reverberation that ran deeply through the floor, waiting with bated breath until the last tinkling of shards and fluttering of papers settled before he cracked open one eye, turning around to take in the damage he'd just caused: the tiny room looked like it had been turned upside down, with the oil lamp on the wall the only thing remaining in its designated spot and three table legs protruding up into the air, the fourth half buried beneath a blanket of papers and broken objects.

Bucky's gaze slowly tapered down to his free hands, shaking and bloody and with one broken handcuff around each wrist. He eyed the burst chains trailing from them, blinking in awe and adrenaline as he picked himself up onto his feet and stumbled over to the doorway, stepping over Fertig's belongings now scattered over the floor. He stopped to grip onto the wooden frame, startling at the sound of the chains swinging at his wrists and stared at the handcuffs he'd just broken apart with his own two hands...

It filled him with both nausea and a thrill of power when the realisation of what he'd just done hit him hard, that he'd _actually_ succeeded in the hopeless task he'd set himself... He chose to ride the high to help him press on through the pins and needles gnawing at his muscles, not allowing himself to put any more thought into it than that.

It was almost pitch-black outside his little boxy room – Fertig could easily be just out of sight inside the cocoon of darkness – but Bucky jumped on the chance and his newfound freedom to stagger blindly out into the corridor and melted into the shadows of the rest of the house.

  


~ ~ ~ ~

  


  


“Bucky!” Steve called, run ragged and desperate as he pushed into yet another room of darkness and stopped to look around. There were no immediate signs of company in the ensuing stillness, but he still ploughed through the room to the faint outline of a window on the far wall and ripped the curtains down in an effort to bleed in more light to see by.

When he wheeled around, Steve's shoulders sagged in disappointment for only a moment before he ran back out the door and abandoned the shelves and shelves of large tomes in the manor's library.

  


~ ~ ~ ~

  


“Buck!”

Steve shouldered open another door and paused on the threshold, making out the silhouettes of a small bathroom with exposed rusted pipes and nowhere for a person to hide. He turned on his heel and ran back out the exit to continue his search elsewhere.

  


~ ~ ~ ~

  


“ _Bucky?!_ ”

Steve's voice was quickly swallowed up in the dense stuffiness of the next room. He was smothered in blackness yet again, but this time his feet landed on carpet when he barged inside. The covered floorboards groaned when he crossed them and Steve had to swerve at the last second to avoid walking into a sprawling piece of furniture in the dark. He made for the thinnest crack of silver behind another thick set of curtains, but even when he tore them down the state of the glass still blocked out most of the light.

Steve's breathing was unbearably loud even over the rustle of falling fabric, until he whipped out his shield and smashed through the dirty window to clear away the glass panes in one swift slice of the metal. The closeness of the air and weight of the shadows evaporated with the tinkling of glass, and Steve wheeled around to scope out his latest find through the splintered shafts of moonlight now stretching in from the window behind his back.

He was standing in an old-fashioned bedchamber, with a large sprawling four-poster bed and thick blankets swathing the mattress. An old dressing table with a cracked mirror and a carved closet filled up the rest of the space, and there was no sign the room had even been touched recently before Steve had stumbled upon it.

Bucky wasn't here.

Without pausing to consider himself, Steve let out a loud shout of frustration and punched straight through one of the four solid posts at the corners of the bed. The top of the frame subsequently collapsed with a clatter and a thick puff of dust and a whine from the bedsprings. The disturbance stirred up the air so that it twinkled dazzlingly in the pale moonbeams then slowly fanned out into a gentle current.

Steve stood there, watching the dust particles and feeling a soft breeze at his back, then let out a shaky, dejected exhale when all of his strength and resolve seeped out of him at once. On heavy legs he slumped down on the bed beside the wreck of wood, eliciting another cough out of the mattress in the process. He barely noticed, and instead reached up to pry his helmet off of his head and bristled a hand through his short blond hair, squeezing his eyes shut against the truth. At this rate he would either never find Bucky, or when he did it could be too late. And it was all Steve's fault.

 _He'd_ led Bucky here. _He_ had been the one who hadn't insisted his friend return to the Keep and hitch a ride to safety with the others. Bucky had only been dragged into Fertig's cross-hairs once _Steve_ had brought him along and endangered his life in the process. He should never have allowed Bucky to come with him. He should have taken his chances out here alone.

Images of yesterday's failed mission, of the soldiers he'd lost and that lone, abandoned walking stick swirled behind his eyelids and only dragged Steve deeper into despair... if he had saved every prisoner of war out here just to lose his best friend at the last moment...? He wrenched opened his eyes again, refusing to let that thought manifest into something worse.

There was another painting of the fortress in this room, with delicate brushstrokes and visible pride put into the piece. Through the shattered window Steve could see the building for real, silent and graceful just like in the painting, only this one was infested and marred and had bore witness to the horrors conducted by Hydra. His brow pulled down into a disapproving frown as he looked at the distant towers, thoughts racing over everything that had happened there tonight.

...How had Fertig survived that fall...?

Steve was forcefully jostled out of his thoughts when a noise came from somewhere else in the manor house. He jumped and turned where he was sitting, staring hopefully at the wood of the door and trying to hear past his galloping heartbeat for any clue that he hadn't imagined it. He jumped again, this time to his feet when the distinct sound of movement could be heard approaching the other side of the door.

Someone walked past, a succession of thumping boots, and Steve didn't hesitate to bolt around the large bed and rip off the door handle in his haste to follow.

He was thrust back into disorientating darkness in the hallway but quickly picked up speed in pursuit of the person who had started to run through the house ahead of him. Steve didn't allow himself to think, just followed the footsteps back in the direction of the balcony and toward the main staircase. He was catching up, and by the time he was descending the stairs the wash of lamplight from below melted over him and the clear image of Gert Fertig, her sandy hair swinging while her long coat billowed behind her like a cape.

Steve ground his teeth together and jumped the last few steps, growling in anger at the sight of her as she slipped through one of the open archways off the main hall.

If he couldn't find Bucky, she would have to do.

“Where is he?!” Steve snarled, sprinting into the dining room, past the chairs and the boxes and rapidly closing the distance between himself and the warden with every step. He was nearly close enough to grab Fertig by the back of her matted chin-length hair as she reached up to the wall and –

She whirled around from beside the old fireplace with a sharp _ziiing!_ of metal ringing from the scythe she now wielded in her hand. The deadly blade sang mere inches from Steve's throat, halting him in his tracks and preventing him from getting that little bit closer so that he could catch her.

“ _Where is he?!_ ” Steve demanded, staring hard into Fertig's evil looking eyes as she panted for breath, eagerly licking her lips like a hungry tiger about to strike.

Steve countered the moment she pounced, catching her slew of multiple attacks on the curve of his shield when she swung at him again and again in a deadly dance of vibranium and steel. She was attempting to push him away, to earn some ground for herself, and Steve only backtracked when she dipped and sliced fiercely through the air where his legs had been a moment before. He stopped beside the table, keeping furious eyes on Fertig as she crossed to the other side and created a wooden barrier between them.

They prowled on their respective sides of the dining table, the air charged and crackling between them. Steve was practically quivering with loathing toward the specimen staring him down. “Don't make me ask you again.” He warned, deadly serious and with his hand wrapped impossibly tight around the straps of his shield.

Fertig made a sound like fire crackling over twigs – a mirthless chuckle. “Do you like my haus, Captain America...?” She twitched her head to the surrounding interior without breaking their eye contact. “I wonder what did you find while you were snooping about in my belongings...?” It was a taunt, but Steve was too riled up to resist.

“I found your 'RX-12', and I know what you're trying to do in this place.” His voice wavered with the effort of not shouting.

Fertig's black eyes flickered, though in a display of amusement. “You do, Captain?” She slipped back another foot when Steve stepped closer to the end of the table, keeping the same distance between them.

“The fortress, all this experimentation on soldiers... you were using them to try and re-create Erskine's serum. That was what the 'RX-12' was about and why you needed me – is it for Schmidt? Is he trying to correct what happened to him?” He didn't hold back his hostility at the mention of Johann Schmidt, but the next second Steve's eyes went wide – he ducked low to avoid Fertig's blade as it sliced through the air over his head and sharply embedded itself in the thick wooden panels of the wall behind him.

“He is a _perfect_ specimen! He does not need correcting!” She spat as Steve straightened up again, staring at her.

“Then what is it? He's trying to make himself an army?” To Steve's unexpected surprise, Fertig laughed as though the idea was ludicrous. “You're right. Hundreds of men all as powerful as he is? I figure he's more the 'singular superior' type...” He played along, trying to discern where this was leading.

“You are a fool.” Fertig continued to prowl, her black eyes as mesmerizing as they were terrifying while focused entirely on Steve. “We do not require an army, we only require _one_. And as it turns out, Captain, I do not need _you_ at all...”

At that, his gut turned to a painful icy weight. “Bucky.” He knew, and the burning hate in his body morphed into a brazen protectiveness. “Tell me where he is, Fertig!” He threatened, and when she did nothing to suggest she was going to comply, Steve tugged her scythe out of the wall in one easy move and brandished it at her across the table with the same deadly accuracy as he wielded his shield.

“The others... they were never quite right.... None of it matters now, of course.”

Steve's breath stuttered in his throat, but he didn't ease up on his threatening stance even when his face flickered with the beginnings of confusion. “What are you talking about?” He couldn't stop himself, feeling his pulse begin to burn more from dread than his steady source of anger. “Are you saying they were all practice? All those innocent soldiers you tortured and killed here?”

Fertig's yellow teeth glinted briefly in the lamplight. “Trial and error: it is all a part of science. But you are right, Captain, they were all surrogates for the true star of this project. And now James and I have real work to do, which I will not let you disrupt again.”

In a flash of movement, Fertig dived towards one of the crates on the dining table, pushed the open lid off and grabbed one of the guns from within. Steve reacted by throwing the scythe through the air in an imitation of his shield, but when it made contact with the table Fertig had already disappeared behind the cover of the dining chairs at her side. There was quick clicking of weaponry from her position as she loaded up her new rifle, so Steve took the opportunity to run around the end of the table and prepare himself to swoop down upon the warden huddled behind the chairs... but when he got there she was gone.

Steve faltered, eyes scanning the nearby area for where she could have moved to until he saw a dark shadow of a person crawling out the other side of the chairs from underneath the table. He barely made it one step before Fertig was shooting at him from over the top of the pile of crates, keeping him at bay while he held his shield over his body to deflect the harmful fire. Steve chanced his luck and struck out with his leg, sending a powerful kick into the crates to push them over and on top of her. There was a shout of anger before weapons and boxes went spilling loudly across the floor, buying Steve time to jump up onto the new clear surface of the table and look down upon the carnage in search of his opponent.

Again, she was gone.

Steve stared with a frown of confusion for the slightest moment before the wood began to crack from beneath him: bullets pelted up from underneath the table in a determined arc from where Fertig was shooting from the ground, and Steve dodged the moment he understood what was happening. Tinny _pings!_ bounced off his shield when he ran along the length of the wooden surface to evade her aim. The bullets followed, until Fertig re-emerged from cover a few seconds later.

Steve thrust his shield across the room toward her position with all of the strength and precision he possessed, his heart hammering in his ribcage at the sound of warbling vibranium when he hit his mark – Fertig went down hard with a blow to her legs.

Suddenly the air was too quiet with the absence of bullets, filled only with two sets of ragged breathing and a peculiar clicking and hissing sound... Steve paid it no heed, and dropped down from the table to stalk angrily over to the huddled form slumped on her knees. Fertig's sandy hair was hanging over her face, dishevelled and stringy from the night's events, and she slowly looked up to glare furious, inky daggers at him. Steve didn't falter in his approach, his jaw set and his hands curled into fists when he drew closer, until something deadly came slicing through the air toward his head out of nowhere with a sudden burst of movement from the warden – Steve ducked and just narrowly avoided the blazing edge of his own shield, coming at him with as much power as if he himself had just thrown it.

The sight made him pause, and Steve watched his beloved weapon with startled eyes as it embedded itself deeply into the wall on the other side of the room. He stared after it until that series of hissing clicks drew Steve's eyes back around to Fertig, just in time to catch the woman forcibly hauling herself back onto her feet like an old rag-doll. Her frame was still huddled and awkward beneath her long coat, and Steve watched with growing impatience as she released her tight clutch of her leg, shook her hair out of her face and bared her yellow teeth at him challengingly, all without breaking eye contact.

What followed was a long swish of dark fabric as her coat was tossed aside, and Steve's mouth fell open in perturbed bewilderment at what was revealed underneath: Fertig ripped away the lower legs of her uniform, showing not skin or blood, but bronze metallic gears all pieced together and ticking around like a working, methodical mechanism. The orange lamplight wound into the exposed maze of crevices and metal and wires, making up what appeared to be robotic, prosthetic legs.

Steve was frozen where he stood, his chest rising and falling in deep breaths as he tried to understand what he was looking at – the warden peeled a padded glove off her right hand and dug spindly, cyborg fingers into the gears where her knees should have been, unsticking one particular cog that was causing the clicking. She gasped out harshly in relief, as though pulling a knife from a wound that had been giving her grief, then straightened up and glared into Steve's soul that was laid bare in horror before her evil eyes.

Fully functioning bionic, metal limbs – _now_ he understood how the warden had survived the perilous fall from the fortress... it still didn't make the revelation any easier to accept.

“What is the matter Captain? It is no fun when we are equally matched?” She jeered, licking her lips again with a purr of enticement. Steve had no words, and even found himself taking a shaky step back when Fertig began to advance on him with pointed _clumps!_ from not boots, but metal feet. She paused, tilting her head to one side like a cat studying a cornered mouse. “Are you impressed? Hydra might not have Erskine's particular formula, but our science goes beyond the ordinary man!”

Steve's fearful eyes raked over the form of the warden, taking in her intimidating appearance, the obvious skill in the line of her body and the three glaring, cybernetic limbs in the space where her real ones would once have been. He couldn't erase the sharp imprints of those bodies lying upstairs, mutilated and cut apart all in the name of Hydra... he clenched his jaw against the shiver running down his spine.

“You call this science?!” He spat, holding his ground as Fertig continued to approach, the tiny whirring of her metal joints audible now without layers of fabric muffling the sound. She twitched her fingers promisingly, a thin metal skeleton hand thirsting for his throat.

“Trial and error, Captain, like I said. But even you cannot deny: _I am extraordinary...!_ ”

With that she pounced, bringing limbs of both flesh and metal swinging down upon him – Steve blocked with his forearms, feeling the _thud_ of metal jar through his bones, and was quickly pulled into a deadly duel in an effort to prevent himself being torn to shreds. Fertig was even faster now due to her increased mobility, with her long coat no longer restricting her movements. Steve lost himself in a blur of bronze and leather as he struck out in mad punches, countering her attacks as quickly as he could in order to keep up with his enhanced enemy.

Engaged in a battle of lightning reflexes, the two opponents worked their way across the room, dodging and slashing and swiping at each other in an endless game of matched potential: every time Steve tried to aim for her legs or her face, Fertig retorted with a sting of her sharp metal fingers swishing dangerously close to his eyes. When Steve seized an opportunity and captured her flesh arm between his own and his body, the warden swiped brutally with the other hand and scoured deep fingermarks into the side of his helmet.

Steve was forced to let go and stagger back, holding his head to clear the black spots blinking in his vision. His helmet suddenly felt much too tight in the place she'd dented it, and he had to pry it off in order to escape its crushing hold against his skull and regain his balance. Fertig was watching him, prowling back and forth with a resonance of _clumps_ and soft whirring.

“Why do you want Bucky? For more of your 'trails and errors'?!” Steve managed, straightening his spine defiantly and watching the Hydra prison warden with his fists curled so tightly they trembled. His fresh bruises from her cybernetic prosthetics cursed him deep in his bones, even though the skin was already healing.

Fertig's head twitched with that cat-like astuteness, adding to the muddied commotion of fear, hatred and rage mingling inside Steve's chest. Her lack of an answer was answer enough. He and Fertig circled each other, hovering just on the precipice of another powerful brawl. The exposed gears on her robotic limbs rotated with her movements, distracting and mesmerizing at once.

“Dr Zola and I have great plans for James. Would you like me to spell them out for you just so you can get in our way? No! Enough talk!”

And then she advanced, moving with terrible speed and aiming her claw right for Steve's chest –

_BANG!_

Steve flinched, bracing himself on the balls of his feet with his blood tingling painfully through his veins. He watched as Fertig jolted with a sickening lurch, catching herself before she lost her balance and clutching her human hand to a blossoming red patch on her right shoulder. Steve gasped, taken by surprise, then instinctively looked over in the direction the interruption had come from.

“Buck!”

Bucky was wielding Fertig's forgotten gun from half way across the room, still aimed on her with his brow pulled into a deep line of contempt. Steve's heart leapt at the sight of him, even with the dark stains of blood running down his friend's face and arms. He was conscious, he was _here_ , and he was alive. Steve didn't allow himself to hesitate any further and jumped back into action, snatching powerful handfuls of Fertig's uniform before she had a chance to recover herself. He swiftly moved so he had her back pinned to his chest, holding her there. Already she was starting to writhe in his grip.

  


Bucky held himself steady on tired feet, blinking away the pains in his body and the blood drying on his face to ensure the greatest aim. He repositioned the firearm upon Fertig's new stance, advancing forward through the scattered crates and weapons littering the grand dining room.

“Buck, get back! It's too dangerous!” Steve ordered, half distracted with trying to keep a hold of their formidable adversary.

Bucky halted where he stood, poised and anxious to get involved in the fight as Fertig twisted and tugged sharply, growling in rage, then somehow succeeded in bursting free of Captain America's super soldier arms. Bucky's frown fell into a stunned stare of disbelief.

“What the hell...?” He muttered, slack jawed at the sight of metal gleaming and moving in the place of Fertig's limbs instead of flesh. His gut churned nauseatingly.

He was left to watch helplessly from the sidelines as the warden and Steve engaged in a rapid-fire fist fight that was practically a blur of bronze and red, white and blue, both matched in speed and ferocity as each attempted to overthrow the other. Fertig never faltered even with the bullet Bucky had shot into her shoulder, though the metal of her right arm was slowly turning red in the lamplight as she danced and slithered around Steve like a serpent out for the kill.

Bucky held up his gun again, looking directly down the barrel and trying to keep up with the accelerated succession of hits and cunning strategies playing out before him, but they were wrestling much too quickly for him to lock onto his intended target. He could just as easily hit Steve.

Huffing in frustrated defeat, Bucky gave up on his current plan and looked around for something more useful, but there were only guns and splinters of wood cascaded around him. Agitated and at a loss for what he could possibly do that wouldn't put Steve at more risk of injury, Bucky suddenly had a bout of inspiration.

With one last look at the ongoing battle, he turned and ran from the dining room, ducking purposefully back through the open arch and out into the orange glow of the hallway.

  


Steve clashed with a bronze skeletal fist, the impact and follow up kick to his shin sending him backwards until he collided with the edge of the dining table. He cried out at the pain stabbing through his leg, catching Fertig by both wrists when she came at him again, stopping her a moment before she could slice into his throat with her clinking fingers.

“Do you know what James asked me? When we were first re-acquainted? 'Aren't you supposed to be dead'.” The warden growled, her face so unnervingly close to Steve's that he could see his own reflection in the black of her eyes. “You have been telling lies about me, Captain... I do not stand for lies!”

She pushed against him harder, the gears in her arm grinding double-time with the effort and Steve forced all of his muscle into holding onto her impossibly powerful prosthetic. Even after she'd been shot, Steve's own body was trembling while trying to restrain her, and he just caught sight of a glitter of movement in the corner of his eye before he suffered another hostile kick from the heel of her robotic boot – he screamed as the bone of his thigh cracked loudly and subsequently released his hold of Fertig, scrambling backwards over the table to escape her glinting claw. She left grooves in the ruined tabletop in his wake, the grinding of shredding wood splitting into the air.

Steve rolled onto the floor on the other side of the table, followed immediately by agony pulsing hotly from his thigh – he could feel the break in the bone as he clutched at his leg, stifling a pained cry and digging trembling fingers into the flaring muscle.

Fertig was moving again but Steve could barely see through the fire blurring his vision to intercept her. He rasped for breath, gritting his teeth tightly together and scrabbling for purchase on the floorboards in order to drag himself along to hide beneath the underside of the table, suffering violent tremors through his leg. He kept crawling, trying to put a sizeable distance between himself and his Nazi pursuer.

It was the sound of metal feet on wood that told him the warden had hopped up onto the surface above and was teasingly following Steve's path along its surface toward him.

“You and James, you are both alike, I think. Though he is not as foolishly stubborn as you are, Captain...” Steve stopped wriggling, Fertig's voice worming in past the pain and awareness of incoming danger. “It took him some time, longer than most, but he eventually came to realise Hydra's rule is unavoidable. That it is better just to give in to us...”

Little beams of orange light shone down through the bullet holes peppering the tabletop, flickering when the warden passed over them. Steve propped himself up on his elbows and shuffled backwards while taking note of her position as she approached, breathing stiffly through the pressure on his leg.

“You were there, weren't you?” He managed, trying and failing not to fall into another of her taunts. Steve huffed out a breath of frustration at himself, his head falling back against the harsh floorboards with mournful clarity. “You tortured him in Azzano.” He grit out, closing his eyes briefly against the fresh wound of his leg and the old scar of Austria.

The flickering lights grew closer.

“But why Bucky? He's not enhanced, he's just a soldier – ” Steve tried before his voice broke off, cursing himself for not thinking of it sooner. “Is it because he's close to me?” It came out so heavy and bitter on his tongue.

Fertig passed the last beams of light, her thick robotic boots coming to rest on top of Steve's position. “He was the one chosen. I wouldn't call it personal, Captain, perhaps we should just call it fate?”

Steve's gut twisted in anger and he held his breath, gasping quietly when he pried his hands off of his trembling thigh. He didn't give her a change to continue before he roughly shoved both hands up against the underside of the table, forcing it away and toppling over on its side. Fertig screamed a furious sound but Steve didn't stop until he'd thrown the entire table off of him and far into the wall with tremendous force, sending her along with it.

Wood splintered messily and sharp spikes tumbled outward when the thing landed in a mutilated heap on the ground, spitting out dust and shards across the floor. When they eventually settled, there was no other sign of movement amongst the debris.

Steve pulled himself carefully up onto his feet using one of the dining chairs, then limped carefully over to the wreck he'd created. When he got closer, he could hear a wheezing breath coming from beneath a particularly large, heavy chunk of wood and harshly tossed it aside with one hand.

Fertig stared up at him, having been partially crushed underneath.

Steve almost growled in loathing as he dug his hand into the pile and fished her out, carrying her by the collar of her uniform while she hung limply but alive in his grasp. She had several gashes to her face and arms, her clothes were red and sticky in more places than just her shoulder, and her cybernetic limbs were jarring like a malfunctioning machine. Fertig was gasping for breath like a fish, but Steve didn't treat her any more delicately as he hauled her up in front of his face until their noses were almost brushing.

“You better start talking or I'll put you back in there!” He promised, curling his fist tighter.

The warden's evil eyes were focused on him as she struggled to speak, but when she did her words still held malicious intent. “Will you?”

When Steve's features darkened to respond, Fertig lashed out with a hissing foot to his broken leg that made him drop onto one knee with a wounded yell. She instantly followed up by bringing a tiny dagger slashing up out of her belt and struck it deep into the meat of Steve's shoulder, getting him to instantly drop his fistful of her uniform.

Steve gasped in surprise, clutching at his stab wound and watching furiously as Fertig hobbled back on sparking legs and kept her human arm awkwardly across her ribs, but was otherwise much more attentive than she'd appeared to be at first sight. After fishing around at her knees again, she stood straighter and looked down at Steve with a gloating sneer. She was still wobbling a little to keep her balance, bleeding from places across her flesh torso, and her yellow teeth were stained with red. “You _are_ a fool, Captain. You can not break me, you can not hurt me, and you will not stop us. James is ours. It has already started. ”

Steve's instincts burned with righteous protectiveness, flaring through his body like Erskine's serum all over again. But before he even managed to make a move toward pushing back up to his feet, Fertig suddenly lunged backward as someone dragged her into a choke-hold. Steve's eyes were caught by the long needle pointing into her neck and the pale green liquid shimmering in the syringe.

“I ain't nobody's plaything!” Bucky growled, giving the warden just enough time to know what was happening before he injected her with full dosage of RX-12. Then he stepped back, allowing Fertig to slump to her knees and cry out at the crunch of squealing metal that followed.

“Buck!” Steve gazed up at his friend in incredible relief, shifting himself to allow Bucky to approach and duck under his good arm. “Where were you?” He grunted when his friend used his strength to help him stand up straight and keep the weight off his twitching thigh.

“Savin' your ass, where else would I be?” Bucky responded distractedly, strapping something comfortable and snug onto Steve's back with a tiny hum of vibranium before quickly guiding him around Fertig's slumped frame and toward the exit. Steve got a closer look at the blood at his friend's temple, thick trails running nastily down the right side of his face, but it seemed to have staunched for now.

Then he looked back over their entwined shoulders and watched as the warden began to gag, choking on air and clutching a fluttering hand where the needle had pierced her on the side of the neck. The sounds were awful, spluttered gasps around dry retching and grating screams of agony. It made goosebumps erupt all over Steve's skin and he had to look away, unable to watch but also unwilling to help her.

“Let's go!” He ushered, speeding up despite the cruel bite of pain that shot through his bleeding muscles in his eagerness to escape this damned place. Bucky didn't need telling twice, and stooped to grab something off the floor that he held carefully in his palm. The sound of his clicking dog tags were a welcome comfort by Steve's ear.

They cleared the threshold to the dining room and stumbled along the hall before Steve tripped and almost dragged them both down to the ground. He gasped at the sharp pull on his tender shoulder and at his own weight landing on his wounded leg, but the next sound that reached his ears made everything suddenly feel a lot better.

“Steve!”

The two soldiers looked up in time to see a stunning, clean cut silhouette standing in the open front doorway. Her warm eyes met Steve's in clear concern before she stepped into the manor house, holstering her pistol and hurrying to his side.

“Peggy, what're you doing here -” Steve started but trailed off when she wrapped her arm around his back at his free side, careful of his shoulder, and joined in with Bucky's efforts to help him along.

“Saving your arse. Although it appears I'm not the only one.” She retorted smoothly, and missed the wry look of amusement that Bucky and Steve then shared. He didn't argue with her but deliberately leaned more on his friend's side, conscious of his weight on Peggy's smaller frame. “You know, this typically works better if you put your weight on both your rescuers.”

Steve cringed, avoiding her face.

“Yep. That would be great.” Bucky pitched in, hefting him a little higher in his arms. Steve bit back a groan at the twinge the movement caused his sore muscles

“Peggy, I'll heal in an hour or two...” He protested weakly.

“We don't have an hour or two – move it, soldier!” She barked, and both Steve and Bucky almost jumped at the authority in her voice and her smart features. They made quick work of the hall, Fertig's tortured screams and awful choking sounds growing fainter the further they went. When they crossed the porch and came to the top of the stairs, Howard Stark's little aircraft was waiting for them on the grounds.

“You got the kid?” Bucky asked Peggy over Steve's head, raising his voice above the engines that were whirring noisily.

“Yes, and that was good work you both did out here!” She replied, helping them down the steps before they carried on across the grass that was welcomingly soft underfoot. “I'm glad to see _you're_ alright, Sergeant.”

Steve looked up at Bucky's face, watching him swallow down some truth that make his brow furrow before he composed his features. “Thank you, ma'am.” He said instead, and when he met Steve's inquisitive gaze they said nothing more about it.

“Peggy,” Steve started, looking back at the exterior of the manor house shrinking slowly behind them. From the outside it looked so unassuming, like it was still sleeping peacefully with warm, happy lights around the bottom floor. Steve thought he could still hear the warden's faint cries. “They have weapons in there, and Fertig is – ”

“Let's not worry about that now. Come on, we're almost there.” Together they crossed the grounds to Stark's aircraft where a door had opened up in the side. Steve tried to distribute as little of his weight onto his allies as possible, relying on his super soldier body to deal with the pain when he finished the journey himself.

When they crouched under the shadow of the wing, he turned back to look once more at the house. “Fertig's still in there.” He stated, keeping his eyes on the illuminated window to the dining room. There was no movement behind the glass.

“I got it.” Bucky said darkly and turned to run back across the grass in the direction they'd just come. Steve kept a watchful eye on the dining room window and his friend's dark shape as he approached the porch steps, then threw something small and with perfect aim right through the front door. When Bucky retreated and was half way back to the aircraft, there came a brilliant flash and a _boom!_ so deep it fizzled through the ground to Steve's position.

Peggy pushed him firmly onto the aircraft, mindful of his injuries, then disappeared in the direction of the pilot's seat. “Get ready for takeoff.” He heard her say, then tore his eyes off of the fire curling through the ground floor of the manor house and onto Bucky who was fast approaching.

Steve shifted, stretching out his good arm to help pull his friend securely on deck the moment he was able. “Stark – go!” He called, wincing when the vehicle beneath him jostled his tender wounds and the engines picked up gusto.

The fire was spreading quickly, already causing a visible glow in the second story windows. Steve watched the building with a stubborn suspicion as they took off and the house began to grow smaller through the closing door of the aircraft. Then it blocked his view completely and sealed shut with an audible _click._

  


~ ~ ~ ~

  


Writhing on the floor, surrounded by ravenous forks of fire and gasping for breath, Gert Fertig managed to dig out a tiny vial from an inside pocket of her uniform. With violent spasms grinding through her metal fingers, she un-stoppered the cork and chugged down the contents, spluttering through the process until she finally managed to capture her first true breath in minutes.

Fertig practically collapsed again, dropping the tiny vial of antidote to the ground and coughing so hard her face turned purple until she was left in a ragged heap. When she tried to move she screamed as her broken ribs and robotic limbs protested, and instead painfully forced herself over onto her back to rest and garner the last of her strength.

Wheezing for breath and twitching occasionally, she lay there as the fire continued to ravage the dining room around her and crawled through every last room in the manor house.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The brief torture features Bucky being dragged, handcuffed and beaten once on the head by Fertig, and she tries to inject him with a syringe while he can't do much to stop her. There is also a short scene where he is alone, trapped and terrified, believing he is going to be tortured and cut open at Fertig's hand.
> 
> The violence includes Steve and Fertig engaged in a boss battle, in which his leg is broken and his shoulder stabbed and Fertig suffers some severe bodily harm herself.
> 
> And now we have just one more instalment to go! :D


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is the final chapter!
> 
> Of course I have to give huge kudos to my artists – FieryEclipse and samthebirdbae! Thank you two for being so amazing and creating such wonderful art for this challenge, I absolutely adore the work you made and am sure I won't be able to stop looking at them for a long time to come :P And here is Samthebirdbae's last piece of artwork for his story - please go and tell these artists how amazing they are!! :^)
> 
> [FieryEclipseOnAo3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10701150/chapters/26752503)   
>  [samthebirdbaeOnTumblr](https://samthebirdbae.tumblr.com/search/darkest+night)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and sticking with Steve and Bucky so far, and I hope you all enjoy the conclusion of the story x)

 

Only now, wrapped in the bubble of Stark's little aircraft with the engines dulled and a cosy heat in the air, did Steve allow himself to relax slightly. He shuffled until he could rest his back against the wall, and the heart-warming _tink!_ of his shield behind his shoulders helped him to unwind further.

He finally looked around the interior of the little craft without the cloud of constant stress on his back, more able to ignore the smarting sting of his wounds and appreciate all that had made it here; there was the kid soldier, fast asleep and buckled in on one of the benches against the walls. He was still wrapped warmly in Bucky's blue coat that was too big for his thin frame, and as he watched, Steve tried to make himself believe that this madness was over and now they could all go home.

“Steve, come look.” Bucky beckoned him, making space where he was standing with Peggy behind Stark's chair for Steve to join them. He did, leaning first on the closest bench and then the back of the pilot's seat to keep off his bad leg.

“That's quite a view...” Peggy said with an unfavourable tone, gazing out the windscreen that opened up a space large enough to see the entirety of the fortress grounds stretching out beneath them.

Steve looked out intently at the place he felt he'd been occupying for weeks. “Yeah.” He agreed bitterly, tightening his grip on the leather chair as the aircraft began to pick up speed.

They were crossing the maze – Stark's headlights running along the dark alleys winding between the hedges and then finally over Bucky and Steve's discarded Hydra truck. They sailed across a fair stretch of muddy grass, flying gracefully nearer to the fortress in the wake of the tanks and reinforcements that had left thick grooves behind. Then there was the remains of the tanks themselves, still puffing out smoke and burning where Steve had left them in their graves.

They swept over the last Hydra tank, crumpled right at the walls having made it _so close_ to its mark, and then they were above the fortress itself – thousands of dark bricks and hidden corners composing the huge place of torture. They passed the roof of the Keep, where Dugan's cannon sat sparking and dismantled on its perch. And then they were retracing the last of their steps, coming up to the blazing rooftop of the Eastern Tower that puffed a huge plume of smoke into the night sky...

Suddenly, the aircraft swerved as a deep rumble burst out from somewhere below them – the group looked down upon the whole expanse of the fortress as it trembled and began to crumble, masses of bricks falling away down to earth as Dernier's explosions lit up periodically throughout the base of the building. When they finally reached the Eastern Tower, it too began to collapse onto itself like someone had kicked out the foundations, and left behind a trailing cloud of black smoke before it whipped away past the windscreen and out of their sight.

Steve sagged heavily in relief, clutching the back of Stark's chair for support while the man took them far away through the wide open space between the Pieniny Mountains. He turned to Bucky where they shared victorious, exhausted grins, and Steve made to clap his arm around his friend's back triumphantly before he winced when he remembered he'd been stabbed in the shoulder.

“Easy, punk. You're not invincible.” Bucky said in amusement with his smile still lingering, though Steve's own slipped off his face.

“Neither are you. Are you alright?” He asked sincerely, swapping hands to rest one firmly on his friend's shoulder, looking over the blood decorating his cheek and the overall shadow of trauma that was clinging to him still. Fertig's words taunted Steve, unearthing unbidden into his mind.

_We do not require an army, we only require one._

A flicker of emotion, something akin to fear crossed Bucky's face, before the line of his shoulders drooped significantly. “Man, I hate Nazis.” He said to his feet, then laughed self-deprecatingly as he looked back up and smiled again, though this time it was sad and painfully true.

Steve's eyebrows lifted a little in the middle as he looked into Bucky's face, seeing past the stoic front he was wearing. “She was a piece of work, huh?” He said quietly, watching his friend attempt to suppress the troubled concern still eating him up inside.

Steve sighed in empathy, then pulled his best friend into a relieved, supportive embrace. He hugged him as best he could one-handed while trying to forget the mad panic he'd felt upon losing him, and Bucky held him back with sturdy arms. Then his friend gently pushed him off and left Steve to catch himself on the pilot's chair again.

“Don't you worry about me: you got better company to busy yourself with right now...” Bucky straightened back up to his usual confident posture, giving Steve a deliberate nudge to his ribs that coerced him to seek out Peggy across the other side of the deck.

He watched as she sat down beside the final prisoner of war, speaking gently to him when he pried open one drowsy eye. Steve smiled warmly at the kid, then softer when his attention returned to Peggy, who's hair was gloriously wind-swept and cheeks were pink. When Steve was pointedly nudged again, in the back this time, he hobbled bravely over and joined Peggy on the bench.

She turned to look at him, holding a secretive smile at the corner of her mouth. Steve tried not to look, and instead turned his attention to the kid. “How's it going there, soldier?” He asked kindly, chuckling quietly when the kid yawned in response.

“Real good, Captain. Real good.” He replied sleepily, then stretched and pushed himself up to his feet. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

Steve felt warmed inside at the sight of the soldier, on his way to freedom and a waiting father, and held out his hand considerately. “You're welcome. You did good, kid.”

They shook hands, the kid with another hint of that expression of awe on his face, before he straightened up proudly and dismissed himself, then padded toward Bucky on bare feet. Steve and Peggy both turned to watch as the kid began to remove the blue coat.

“Why don't you hold onto it for me till we get back to base?” Bucky's voice floated back to them, and Steve smiled fondly to himself, this time finally feeling himself relax for real.

“Steve?” He looked around and into beautiful dark eyes, thriving on the butterflies they caused in his stomach. Peggy hesitated for a moment before she carried on carefully. “I hope it was alright sending you out again so soon after... after what happened on yesterday's mission? I know it must have affected you more than you let on.” The butterflies turned to rocks and Steve broke their eye contact to look down at his gloved hands in his lap. “Are you going to be alright?” She asked softly, with genuine concern evident in her voice.

Steve searched for the right words. The guilt from the last mission was heavy inside him, lining the walls of his chest in a way he knew wouldn't go away for a very long time. Yet, as he brought his head up to look back over at the kid who was talking quietly but animatedly with Bucky, he also felt a glowing pride toward that young soldier and how much he'd survived. And he was just _one_ of 1,000 equally brave men tonight. That thought brought a slow smile to Steve's lips.

“There are always gonna be people that need saving,” He said thoughtfully, turning to make eye contact with Peggy and holding it this time, aware of the close proximity of their bodies sitting side by side. “As long as I'm able, I want to help them. You don't get days off when there are lives on the line. And I don't want any.”

They watched each other for long seconds in a way that made Steve feel warm and tingly all over again. When Peggy spoke, he almost didn't hear what she said. “You sound like a young man I once knew.”

The giddy bubble inflating in Steve's ribcage deflated somewhat. He tried not to sound jealous when he asked, “I do?”

“Yes. He seemed to think there was always a fight that needed to be fought, and that he was just the man to do it.” Steve's thoughts raced, his predicament showing on his face until Peggy added, “It didn't stop him from losing all of those fights of course, but he never ran away from the next one. No matter how many times he was knocked down.” Her plush lips smirked as her large dark eyes blinked purposefully at him.

This time, Steve understood why she was watching him in amusement and ducked his head to hide the blush burning at his cheeks. “Yeah, he sounds like a jerk.” He laughed self-consciously at his gloves.

“He sounds like a hero.” He was helpless to avoid the adoring look she gave him, so trusting and proud that it washed over him like a stunning summer's day. Steve had no words, and so settled on simply watching her with a timid expression of gratitude on his face. “Good work, Captain. Mission accomplished.” Peggy concluded tenderly, just as Howard Stark interrupted their conversation from the front of the bridge.

“You guys gonna join us up here, or what?”

Steve and Peggy both stood up, and she helped him walk over to the windscreen where they stared through the glass in wonder: the floating shape of the larger aircraft glided into view around the next mountain. It was a dark shadow against the night sky, but with little pinpricks of light guiding them that shone as brightly as the stars above it.

Steve stopped with Peggy on one side and Bucky and the Italian kid comfortably on the other, as under Stark's control they smoothly glided through the air and made their way ever closer to a small hatch on the underbelly that slid open to greet them.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

The aircraft's bridge was filled with the tune of bleeping dials, muffled voices from beyond the door and shuffling movements from all seven Howling Commandos crowding together around Peggy and Colonel Phillips. A thick satchel thumped down onto a little table in the midst of the group, crinkling with the magnitude of papers practically bursting from the seams. Beside it, Steve set down a polished little box, sliding it carefully over the smooth surface so that the Colonel could get a good look at the green-tinged syringe tucked inside.

The man's wrinkled brow furrowed deeper, then he looked up with a simple blink of disapproval. “You mean to tell me I sent Captain America deep into a Hydra fortress and he didn't so much as find a single clue on Schmidt's location?” He grumbled, his voice a mimic of the engines purring tangibly beneath their feet.

Steve placed a hand on his waist in frustration, leaning the other on a crutch to keep off his broken leg. He cast his gaze down upon the substance shimmering innocently inside the box. “We _did_ learn that Fertig has been working under Zola's influence and that they've been developing this drug – ”

“And you only brought back one itty-bitty sample and a useless diary page.” Phillips slapped down a crumpled note with Fertig's handwriting on it, adding it to the table. “This is hardly enough to be of any real use, you do realise this don't ya...?” The Colonel drawled, drawing Steve's eyes back to him. They clashed in a defiant staring match for a long moment before Steve allowed himself to give in first. He sighed in defeat.

“There might be... some more... of the drug...” He said brokenly, feeling the curious burn of his teammates' questioning stares on the side of his face. Steve furtively avoided their eyes as he gestured weakly to his own body.

“Oh boy...” He heard Bucky mutter from his side, low and displeased under his breath.

“There were no long term effects, but if I can do anything to offer more help – ”

“Then you'll volunteer to get yourself shot full of Zola's perverse chemicals! Dully noted, Captain.” Phillips exclaimed in mock gratitude, which made Steve's brow pull down indignantly. “No offence.” The Colonel added belatedly, waving a hand toward Bucky and receiving a little vexed frown shot back in reply.

Steve defensively tipped his chin up a little higher, pressing his index finger down onto the table to stress the matter. “The important thing is we have new information we didn't have before, even if it isn't what you wanted. The RX-12; this man they were hiding – ”

“Yeah, 'this man' who none of you know anything about 'cept that he worked for Hydra! That ain't what I call useful information.” Phillips interrupted him again.

Peggy cleared her throat, a sharp intervention with the coolest composure hiding a warning. “Colonel, this could become a tender subject...” She started, and slowly the crowd all rounded on Bucky, one by one.

Half of the Sergeant's face was caked in blood, he was still missing his jacket and with the deep scratches digging into his wrists, he looked the definition of battle-weary. He rubbed a palm thoughtfully over his chin to prolong answering the question, but when he met Peggy's eyes head-on there wasn't a flicker of vulnerability about him.

“I can't tell you anything more'n I already have. Hopefully there'll be something useful in those files that can give you more to work with...” Bucky pointed toward the bulging satchel sitting proudly on the table in the middle of the group. Steve's concerned gaze lingered a moment longer before he turned away, schooling his features into a more respectable calm.

“Well I sure as hell hope so.” The Colonel was saying, just as the door to the bridge opened behind them and someone walked through, providing the group with a view of the thriving crowd in the room beyond: the hundreds of soldiers were restless and jovial as they conversed and buzzed about making their way to safety, arms around each others shoulders and exhausted but beautiful smiles on their grubby faces.

It made Steve's heart swell further when his gaze landed on the small figure of the Italian kid, currently buried within Bucky's blue coat and a bone-crunching hug from his doting father. Steve's soft smile burned deep through his chest and helped soothe his temper.

Colonel Phillips' stony-faced mask began to peel slightly at the edges as he continued. “At least it looks like Agent Carter was right about the lot of you after all! You got all those soldiers outta there, even if you did blow up an entire fortress full of Hydra's secrets in the process...”

The Howling Commandos all rolled their eyes. “That's the thanks we get?” Dugan piped in, his large horseshoe moustache ruffled and windswept from his turn atop the roof of the Keep. Gabe and Dernier shared a look before they exchanged a few choice French words, snickering between themselves.

“And here I thought we were in for a promotion! 'Captain Falsworth' – I like the sound of that...” The Brit elbowed Steve playfully, earning an amused little grin in return. Their attention was collectively stolen when Peggy spoke up, rescuing them from the unimpressed storm brooding over Phillips' face.

“I think what the Colonel _means_ to say is 'job well done'.”

“ _I'll_ say what I mean to say, Agent Carter...!” The Colonel corrected her, and then he noticed all the expectant faces trained on him, waiting for him to continue. Finally, the man conceded with a reluctant grunt of agreement in Peggy's direction. The soldiers cracked up as Phillips feigned indifference and began making his way across the bridge, muttering darkly to himself and leaving them to it with a secret air of pride radiating off of his back.

Steve clapped a congratulatory hand upon Bucky's shoulder. The two men grinned at each other through their aches and pains, standing tall and finally on the other side of the mission.

“Job well done.” Steve repeated to his best friend, and quickly fell victim to a fond ruffle of his hair for his efforts.

“I'd sure say so...!” Bucky answered, before he became distracted by Morita and Dernier clamouring for his attention elsewhere.

Steve looked over all of his friends, straightening his posture minutely as he took in the sight all around him: seeing them all safe and together and _happy_ filled him with a distinct sense of fulfilment that only increased when he turned to catch another glimpse of the Italian kid and his father when Colonel Phillips approached the door. Steve smiled to himself, momentarily forgetting about his wounds before he turned to Peggy and watched her look around with a sparkle of fond emotion touching the corners of her lips. When her smouldering eyes found his, her smile curved up significantly and immediately sent his stomach into that same fit of butterflies.

“Oh, and you two,” Phillips stopped at the door and pointed purposefully between Steve and Bucky, who tried not to wince as he continued. “Make your way down to medical. The last thing this division needs is Captain America droppin' dead cause of some Hydra drug!”

“Yes, sir.” They said collectively, and watched as the Colonel disappeared into the crowd of rescued POWs before the door shut behind him. Steve massaged a careful hand over his shoulder wound, resisting the urge to flinch at the sizzle of pain it induced. He and Bucky looked at each other, taking in the visible amounts of blood and bruises between them.

“Med bay?” Steve offered.

“You bet.”

As they turned, Falsworth appeared in Steve's path with a sly grin on his face. “When we land, you still owe me a drink for that superb distraction I crafted earlier...” He inclined his eyebrows, waiting for the memory to hit.

“That's right, I do.” Steve agreed, attempting to keep his expression of humour off his face. “And hey – you never got shot! That's always a bonus.”

“Well, nowhere fatal anyway.” Falsworth said cheerfully, patting a hand against the side of his ribcage before he walked off to join the others still crowding around the table. “You hear that lads? Drinks are on the Cap!”

Steve rounded on Bucky with worried, confused eyes. “He _is_ okay, right?”

The Sergeant just laughed like he knew the answer to a joke Steve had missed. “He's fine, come on.” He tugged his Captain around and led the way onwards, the two soldiers departing from the joyful circle of laughter and off-key singing from their friends.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

The aircraft cruised fluidly through the sky, allowing the first rays of sunrise to gleam dazzlingly in through little portholes lining the wall. The engines hummed quietly beneath them, a peaceful contrast to the constant bustle of activity going on behind the curtain that had been pulled over to separate Captain America and Bucky Barnes from the countless soldiers flitting in and out of the other beds.

While currently laid up in a tiny section of the medical bay, it was easy to tune out the ongoing sounds coming from elsewhere. Bucky just allowed himself to drift as golden hues of light painted his stomach and he sank down into the mattress beneath him, his whole body heavy with exhaustion while simultaneously alert and zinging from completing the mission.

He could barely see out of the bandage that had been wrapped tightly around his head, leaving his brown hair sticking messily out of the top, but he still turned his head to his friend when Steve's voice spoke up from the bed beside his.

“Doesn't this remind you of the time we got beat up by Bert Doggum on your birthday?” The thoughtful smile on his face looked so like the little 90lbs kid of their childhood, emphasised by the swathes of bandages coiled around the man's shoulder and down his leg that was supported by a sling. At least three toes were sticking stubbornly out of his worn socks, though Bucky's weren't much better.

“I think you also busted both wrists trying to punch 'im back?” Bucky settled himself more comfortably on the bed and peeked back over at Steve from underneath his bandage.

“Yeah...” His friend sighed at the memory, his huge shoulders sinking a little into his own bed. “I _did_ manage to get your slingshot back though.”

“Until you shot a rock at his head and got it confiscated!” A laugh bubbled out of Bucky's chest that Steve soon joined in with, and Bucky could feel the thick smokey dregs of that godforsaken fortress seeping out of him with every second. He ignored the throb from his injuries in favour of holding onto the carefree feeling that came with laughter as long as possible, until it inevitably died down between them again.

In the sated silence that followed, Howard Stark flew them even further away from the place Bucky had almost become a captive of Hydra again, the place he had almost been once more at the mercy of Gert Fertig. Suddenly the warmth of the dawning sun didn't feel as calming as it had before, and Bucky had to suppress a shiver threatening to raise goosebumps on his body at the ghost of the warden's evil eyes on his face and her impossible grip on his arms.

At least now he understood how she'd been so strong. Metal limbs... he tried to forget the way they'd gleamed in the light, the sight of whirring gears blending away into the dark fabric of Fertig's uniform. He decided he didn't want to know how extensive they were.

When Steve spoke up again, his voice seemed to be coming from a long way off.

“Buck...” He looked up, noting the tiny troubled crease between those eyebrows, but the blue eyes were steady and honest. “What Fertig said... I'll never let anything happen to you. I promise.”

The prickling of something foreign, something known but untraceable wriggled uncomfortably beneath Bucky's skin. He pressed his lips together to stave off the words Fertig had used to describe him, as though she had a secret understanding of him that he didn't have of himself.

_We had great plans for you..._

_You belong to Hydra now, it is in your destiny..._

_The results are already showing._

Bucky broke his eye contact with Steve, looking down at the cleaned and bruised marks left in the wake of the handcuffs he'd broken in two. They only ached, but suddenly the marks felt as scalding as fire on his wrists and in his gut and at the back of his mind...

“Bucky.” Steve drew his eyes again, propping himself up on his good elbow to close the distance between them a little further. “I promise.” He vowed, the strength of his conviction indestructible.

That ashen sinking feeling settling in the pit of his stomach melted away, and Bucky felt himself smile. He allowed his friend's words to convince him all would be okay, grasping onto the possibility like it was an ember in utter darkness.

He settled back down comfortably on his mattress, folding his hands behind his head and crossing his ankles. “I know.”

He was aware of his friend repositioning himself until he too was content, both soldiers tucked safely away in their own private corner of the medical bay on their way back to London. The sun had risen further – drifting lazily through the portholes in sparkling beams and bringing with it a new day that promised rest, recuperation and finally getting good men back home to their loved ones.

Out of the corner of his eye, Bucky could see Captain America's circular shield propped up between their beds, glinting in the sunrise and directing golden reflections around the small space. Steve's fingers were holding onto the thin rim of vibranium, petting the surface like the shield was his very own loyal companion and loving pet. He looked content where he was – lacking the tirade of insecurities that had been weighing him down the morning before. Bucky smiled, appeased at the sight.

He followed the multicoloured rings down the shield to the white star stamped proudly in the middle before a sudden thought crossed his mind, passing like a flicker of a shadow on his features.

“So you _did_ know what that RX-12 stuff was in there!”

Steve groaned and covered his face with his hand to stifle the guilty, defeated sound at having had his master plan foiled. “Bucky, don't...”

“What? You dive back into that goddamn house for me but I'm not allowed to have my say?”

“There's nothing to say! I'm fine, Buck – I swear, one day you'll finally realise I'm a super soldier! You don't have to worry about me anymore.”

Bucky pointedly raised his eyebrows, looking over his friend's multitude of bandages, the leg held up in a sling and the toes peeking out of his socks, suddenly unable to hold back the grin that slid onto his lips. “You sure about that?”

Steve suddenly broke out into laughter, a hearty music that bubbled out into the warm space between them.

Bucky couldn't help but join in.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

“ _Dr Zola!”_

“ _What is it, what is it – Fertig? What are you doing here? You are meant to be in Poland! We had strict plans for you to... what happened to you?”_

“ _Captain America.”_

“ _...Ah...”_

“ _We lost the fortress, Dr. But I have gained something_ _much more beneficial for our cause.”_

“ _The entire fortress?! But you were supposed to be guarding – ”_

“ _Dr. Do pay attention.”_

“ _Yes, yes, more beneficial – but I do not see what could be more beneficial than – ”_

“ _Trust me, Arnim. We will have no need for the fortress or the other prisoners after this...”_

“ _What? Why? What are you...?”_

“ _I found him, Dr... I found him.”_

 

 

The End

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the part where the CA:TFA music swells dramatically, and hopefully you're feeling satisfied with what you've just experienced! x) The Stucky Big Bang was definitely a challenge – there was months of hard work invested in this story, and I hope the end result was as enjoyable for you as it was for me :D
> 
> I enjoyed writing this story so much, and I had so much fun creating and playing with the character of Fertig that I think I'm not really finished with her yet... Even though she's evil, I do think she's pretty badass and has a lot of potential we never got to see here, so expect to see her again from me at some point in the future... but for now, let's give Steve and Bucky the respite they deserve before the events of TFA swoop in, and we all know what happens next...
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and I hope you'll come back to check out my other works when I get more posted :D I have a huge post-CW multi-chaptered story coming up next, and I can't wait for it to get started! 
> 
> I applaud everyone who took part in the Stucky Big Bang, authors and artists, betas and pitch-hitters alike – I can't wait to see what everyone else has been working on! x


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